Resume Writing Sucks.

Can I get an Amen?? I would SO much rather gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon than deal with resumes and cover letters right now. Fortunately/unfortunately, I just recently finished my first round of law school finals. I say fortunately because, duh, of course it’s great that finals are over—only a legitimately crazy person enjoys sitting through 3-4 hours of grueling exams (per class) after sitting for at least a month in dark caves of reading and outlining, surrounded by piles of books/papers, living by the light of harsh fluorescent lighting, eating God-knows-what from occasional vending machines, delivered fast food, and canned whatever, and worrying that all the studying in the world isn’t going to prepare you enough for the tsunami that is the exam. I may be speaking slightly in hyperbole, but everyone tells me that the first semester is always the worst, and that Spring semester you’re at least no longer walking through a thick cloud of uncertainty. You have a better idea of what to expect from your classes, professors, and classmates (let me tell you, the crazy can come out—and I’m sooo not an exception. Unfortunately. I mean, wait. Of course I am! I’m Superwoman.. Obvi.). Hopefully you do, anyway.

Anyway, the problem with finals ending (besides realizing that you’ve become entirely socially retarded—because, you know, books don’t have verbal conversations with you.. or at least, they shouldn’t) is that it’s almost as if we’ve all been pulled back into very tightly wound elastic knots, and the second we get out of our last final, it’s like one piece snaps, and the whole knot just explodes, causing our brains to fly into every direction. Or maybe that’s just me. Is it possible to develop ADD in your adulthood? Anyway, there’s instantly a pull of competing interests that comes with the sudden post-finals freedom. Do I want to eat a decent meal (i.e. something that couldn’t survive a nuclear attack)? Do I want to sleep for three days? Do I want to go out and drink away the memory of the past couple months? Make a Christmas wreath? Buy/wrap/send Christmas gifts for family members I’m not going to see when I go home? Go see a movie? Shower? Of course, the answer is yes to all of those things, but unless you have Hermione’s Time Turner, it’s impossible to satisfy all of those needs at once.

And then there’s the other part. The part you need to do. Like clean your awfully disgusting apartment. And do laundry. And finally finish your resume and cover letter. Because, technically, you should have had that done before December 1^st so you could start sending it out to employers as soon as NALP lifted that iron curtain between 1Ls and potential employers. Barf. Seriously, I just finished working!!! It sucks knowing that I’m “finished working” but not really finished working. I know, finishing a resume and a cover letter is not really that difficult, and bitching about it only makes it take longer, but I hate hate HATE working on my resume. I’m not entirely sure why.

It could possibly be because I’m a serial sandbagger. I’ve tried shirking that characteristic, but I don’t think it’s something I’m going to be very successful at. I recognize that sounds just like something a sandbagger would say, but ironically, when talking about getting rid of being a sandbagger, that could be one of the few times that I actually mean what I say. Well, I mean, I definitely mean it when I say, “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to run very quickly today,” and then surprise myself when I actually end up running a route in a decent time. I think I just like setting the bar low for myself.

And I think that’s why I hate writing a resume.

I can never quite figure out the line between my actual accomplishments and total puffery. I would hate for some employer to hire me and then come back and say, “wow, we really thought you were going to do much better..” But then, I also don’t want to look entirely unimpressive either. I wish I could just throw in some random characteristics and skills, accompanied by some witty comments, and then call it a day. Is carving a dance floor bubble in a bar (that definitely doesn’t have a designated dance floor) considered a skill? I highly doubt that any serious employer is going to take me seriously if I do that. Wop wop.

So instead of finishing my actual cover letter right now, I’ll just list some of my more impressive skills here and hope that something inspiring jumps out at me:

Solitary bar/car dancing

(specialties: polka, robot, happy feet, occasional Thriller/krumping)

Supreme accent mimicking

(specialties: Lithuanian, Italian, British, Cockney, French)

Reciting Ke$ha lyrics verbatim

List making

Checklist-cross-offing

Airport security rule-follower

Mail checking

Male checking

French braiding (that’s a new one!)

Nail painting

Drawing like a five-year-old

Coloring in Justice O.W. Holmes’ magical mustache*

Rainbowifying, aka making color-coordinated tabs for law school casebooks

Words with Friends player (currently 11-4 record, only going up)

Wouldn’t you want to hire me for a summer legal internship??

*In case you don’t know what the HM (Holmes Mustache) looks like.. 

Hi There.

Remember me? Me neither. Has it really been that long since I last posted? Doesn’t matter. This post is already boring. The point is, my last post was a million years ago, and life events have happened. I’ve driven halfway across the country to fly around and eventually settle in Texas, and am currently in my first year of law school. So that means I now have a slightly better ability to qualify everything I say, I know a couple Latin words, and am sprinkling just about every sentence with an indiscriminate amount of “y’all.” I don’t yet own cowboy boots, but I pretty much never turn down the opportunity to eat a brisket taco. Oh, and I’m broke. Still. I mean, I have some money, but it’s all borrowed from future fancy-pants lawyer me (that ideally can get a decently-paying job after I graduate). But basically, that’s about it. Broke. (What else is new?)

Anyway, I put the blog on the backburner while I once again radically changed my life in about a billion ways. As per usual, I put a gazillion things on my plate, got crazy busy, and “took a break” from blogging. Hopefully just temporarily. 

Last time I posted, there was a daily tennis match going on in my brain as I was trying to decide between spending the next three plus years in California or Texas. For undergrad, that wouldn’t have made a difference, but for professional school it can really determine where you get your first job, and then what network you end up relying on, where you end up settling down, yadda yadda.. Anyway, there were way more implications to this decision than to any other decision I had made ever before inmyentirelife, and being someone who has trouble choosing what to eat for lunch (have I ever told the story about the time when I couldn’t decide what to eat, and ended up eating nothing but an apple? For some reason my brother finds this story hilarious), something so huge as the REST OF MY LIFE was overwhelming—to say the least.

One minute, my brain would look like this:

The next minute, it was this:

But eventually, my brain just looked like this:

It was exhausting.

But finally, and amazingly, and by a twist of fate, I ended up in Texas, dropping “y’alls” everywhere, running with Texas-flag running shorts, jumping at every opportunity to get barbecue, and listening to country music. Am I really from California?? Now you might be like, “big whoop, Miss Law Student, you just spent last year living in South Carolina.” But there’s something about Texas that just feels like I am where I’m supposed to be. SoCar didn’t give me that so much.

Maybe it has to do with being in law school. I’ll regale y’all with stories of the, ahem, glitzy world of law school at some point (See?? Y’all!! I did it again!! Hah. Brilliant.), but for now suffice it say that I’ve spent a lot of time in class, in my books, in the library, on Facebook, and at Bar Review. No, not that Bar Review—actually the fun Bar Review (for the first half of the semester, anyway).  That pretty much sums it up! Oh, and cooking and baking every once in a while. And decorating my apartment to my liking. And having a roommate. And eating. And running. Yay. And trying to be funny. Most of the time. But succeeding very little. Which on its own is actually pretty funny. When it happens. Trust me on this.

And speaking of trying to be funny, in looking back, I think I was trying a little too hard. Maybe. Not sure how I feel about those posts. I’m going to try to post more often than I have recently (as in more than zero—setting the bar high here), although I’m not going to guarantee that I’m going to post every week. If it turns out that way, that’s fantastic! But I want to try more to have better quality posts.. Although now that I said that I feel like I just put more pressure on myself, and no one is going to find what I have to say remotely entertaining and/or funny, and I’m just going to look like an ass. Blerp. Ahh well!! At least it doesn’t.. harm?.. anyone?.. I think? Maybe I’ll just distract you with another drawing Nephew begged me to make forever ago.

Rawr.

Did it work?