Thinking of You

For almost a year now I have been jobless, and for almost a year now I have had people helping me look for one, without my knowing. These are not the people who will pass along a job to me that they heard or read about, these are people who will go to people they know and ask them about a job for me. I will then receive a message from them to call so-and-so, he/she would like to talk to me about a job, or even better, there is no job, but Mr. Head Honcho would like to talk to me anyway.

Great. Just great. Why? Because even though I am not looking for a job at the time as I am concentrating on the LSATs, law school applications, or waiting to hear from schools, I now have an obligation to call these people. I now have to take time out of my day, put on a friendly, smiley face, be polite and adult-like, and call these people. I have to talk to them for five to ten minutes, rehash my LSAT and law school history and problems, listen to them give me advice that I have probably already heard more times than I can count, thank them for their help, and then say goodbye.

Yes, it is only five or ten minutes, yes, these people who hook me up do have my best interest at heart, yes, I do appreciate it, and yes, who knows, maybe someday in the future it will benefit me, but right now, I do not want them doing this for me. I do not want a job now, I am not looking for one and will not be looking for one until I know what is going with law school. On top of that, I would really like to choose what kind of job to get, where I apply for a job, and whom I talk to about one. It is my life, and I would like to have some control over it. So, while the thoughts and gestures are appreciated, please, let me make my own decisions about what job I would like and where I work.

Adventures in Chauffeuring

For three days a few weeks ago I picked up my friends' nephew from school and took him to his playgroup or babysitter. Basically, I chauffeured him from one place to the next. He is a cute boy, and very bright. He is very talkative and inquisitive, and says some of the funniest, and sometimes adult-like, things at times. Here are some of the conversations I had with him.

Monday (driving down McCormick Blvd.): 
Him: What speed are you going?
Me: Forty-four.
Him, a few minutes later: What speed are you going now?
Me: Forty-six.
Him: But the sign says forty.
Me: Ummm...Yeah. I, ummm, accidentally pressed too hard on the accelerator.
(He continued to ask me what speed I was going for the rest of the fifteen minute ride, and then told me what the actual speed limit was.)

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Tuesday (at the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru):
(I had turned on the windshield wipers to clean my window.)
Him: Why did you do that?
Me: My windshield was dirty so I had to clean it.
Him: Oh. Your wipers go like this. (He mimics the motion with his hands.)
Me: Yes, they do.
Him: Do all wipers go that way?
Me: I don't know. Maybe.
Him: Well, my Abba's wipers go the other way. (Mimics that too.)
Me: Oh, ok.
Him: Can you turn yours on again?
Me: No.
Him: Why?
Me: I don't need them anymore. My window is clean now.
Him: Oh, ok.

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Tuesday (on the way to the babysitter):
Him: What time is it?
Me: Twelve fifty-eight. Almost one o'clock.
Him: There is no one o'clock. It's a hundred.
Me: Yes, it looks like one hundred, but when you tell time, it's one o'clock.
Him: No, it's one hundred o'clock.
Me: No. There's one hundred, and one o'clock. When you learn to tell time it is one o'clock.
Him: Hmmmm....I'll have to talk to my mom about that and see.
Me: Ok. You do that.

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Wednesday (arriving at the playgroup, getting out of the car):
Him: Oy! I'm so tired!
Me: You are? Why?
Him: I barely slept at all last night!
Me, thinking, "Kid, you have no idea..."
Me: Oh, why was that?
Him: I don't know! I just didn't sleep and I'm so tired.
Me: Well, maybe you'll get a good night's sleep tonight.
Him: I hope so! I'm just so tired right now!


We had many more interesting and funny conversations, but unfortunately, that is all I remember. However, I am watching my three and half year old cousin for three weeks, of which two are left, so I will definitely be adding some stories from her.

The Kindness of Strangers

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."
-Aesop (620 BC - 560 BC), The Lion and the Mouse.

I had a terrible day Wednesday, April 22nd. One of the absolute worst days in a very long time. I was yelled at by a coworker, out in the open, in front of everyone. It was humiliating, and infuriating. And what she yelled at me was not even true and had no basis. As much as I tried to continue working after that, I could not. I had to get up and leave my office.

I went outside into the alley and tried to control myself and prayed that my red, teary eyes would go away quickly enough that I could go back to work. (For those who don't know, the alleys downtown are not really alleys, they are more like small streets, they just happen to be behind the buildings.) I was out there for an hour. In that hour, I got so many glances and stares, but only a few stopped to ask if I was okay.

At one point, I noticed a woman walking toward me, one of the many who had in the forty-five minutes I had been there. As she came towards me, I buried my head in my coat, hoping that like the others she would just glance at me and keep moving.

But she did not. She did glance at me, yes, but she stopped, asked if I was okay, and kneeled down beside me. I had said I was fine, but clearly I was not. She leaned in and and wrapped one of her arms around me in a hug. That was my undoing. I just broke down. I started crying in her arms.

I quickly pulled myself together, and thanked her. She proceeded to ask me if I wanted to pray, to which I kindly responded no after thinking that not only would we be praying to different G-d's, but that she probably expected me to cross myself. I had a quick flash of what would happen if I had accepted her offer to pray with me, and I didn't want to have to explain why I do not cross myself on top of everything else that had happened. She asked if I was sure; I said yes. She reached into her purse, pulled out a wad of tissues, and handed it to me telling me that I should at least have them. I thanked her, and as she got up, she said to me, "I'll be praying for you," and continued on.

I was shocked. A complete stranger, who had no idea who I was, was willing to, and did, offer me comfort and help. And you know what? It was a comfort, and it did help. It showed me that while I may have worked with some real jerks (and that's putting it nicely), that there are still people out there who are not, who are willing to help a person in need, a person they do not know at all. She gave me a glimmer of hope, that maybe, just maybe, people were not all that bad. I'm just sorry it took a complete stranger to help me realize this.

The Map and the Calling

When people are young, they tend to map out their life. Where they will go to college, what their major will be, what profession they will go into, what age they marry and have children, and what job they will ultimately end up getting. But life and G-d have a funny way of stepping in and saying, "That's what you think." So, what do you do when your plans go "boom!" in your face?

I had my life mapped out. Yes, I was one of those girls who would dream about all that stuff I wrote above. I knew what age I wanted to be when I got married, what age when I had my first child, graduated law school, and so on. Over the past three years though, my life plans had changed. I would not be going to straight to law school from college. I was not going to be getting married at twenty-four and having my first child at twenty-seven. And I was fine with that. Really. It was an adjustment, realizing that what I'd dreamed about would not go exactly as I planned, but that's life, right? So I worked around it.

I took a year off from school to work, practice for and take the LSATs, apply to law schools, and date. (Ok, the dating kind of just fell into my lap. It was not planned, nor did I take a year off to do that.) It's been great. I love my job, though not everyone I work with. But as much as I love my job, it's not what I want to do for the rest of my life, and frankly, it's not something I would happy doing for the rest of my life.

I applied to four law schools, and have heard back from two. I'm waiting to hear back from two others, but honestly, things are not looking good. One of the schools I heard back from is one of the easier schools to get into. They tend to take the students that are good, but not great. Well, apparently, I'm not good, or even good enough. I didn't get in, and if I did not get in there, to that school, then I am probably not going to get in anywhere else. So now I'm faced with the question of "Now what?"

Where do I go from here? What do I do? Do I continue to apply in the hopes that someone will accept me, or do I give up, and find some other profession? My problem with the latter is, I do not think I can really be happy with doing anything else. I saw somewhere recently, I don't recall where, that being a lawyer is not a profession, it is a calling. And that is so true, at least for me. I have wanted to be a lawyer since I was twelve years old. I am now twenty-three. That's a long time to know what you want to do and not have it change.

But now my dreams seem to be crashing before my eyes, and am I left to wonder and try to decide where to go from here. To top it all off, the guy I have been dating for the past (almost) year and a half is moving to Israel in two months. So there goes that as well. What do you do when your plans fail and your calling seems to no longer be calling you?