What could possibly be better than drinking your morning coffee on the deck in beautiful weather while playing around on the internet you ask? Doing all of the above while Max sits next to me drawing aliens and submarines. Why aliens and submarines you ask? That one has a longer answer. Apparently when the aliens take over there are going to be holdout resistance cells in underwater colonies and the aliens will have to use the submarines to wipe them out. I’m also kind of getting the sense that Max is rooting for the aliens.
So I went to a job interview yesterday and was offered the job. That sounds like a great thing. And it is. I wouldn’t have gone to the interview if I didn’t feel like I need a job. The economy is killing me, and while I could get by for a lot longer, I don’t see things getting drastically better in a hurry. And this job comes with a decent salary and excellent benefits. And it’s a fun job. Without going into too much detail, I would be performing judge-like functions which is definitely something that would play to my strengths and satisfy my control issues (thus keeping them out of my personal life).
It is a really sad thing to contemplate giving up my practice though. I’ve wanted my own practice in the boro since I was 19 and in my second year of college. And I worked my ass off through a lot of adversity to get to a point where that was possible. So letting go of that, knowing it would be a long time if ever that I could try it again, and especially giving up cases that I’m very invested in, is slightly heartbreaking. It would also mean giving up teaching a second class and possibly giving up mock trial, and that would definitely be rough. On the other hand, what kind of spaz am I to go interview for a job, get it, and then wonder if I want it? People all over the place are losing jobs and failing to find work again and having trouble taking care of their families, and I got a job (a good one) out of my first attempt. I should be feeling pretty darned lucky shouldn’t I? Ugh. Well, I will spend a fair amount of time this weekend making that decision I guess.
In other news, two of our mock trial teams qualified for ORCS (Opening Round Championship Sites for those unfamiliar with the new qualifier system) and will be going to compete in said competitions next weekend. I will be taking the “B” team to Memphis and Coach V is taking the “A” team to Greeneville. Coach A was going to come to Memphis with us, but she has a paper to present the following weekend so she bailed. I’m pretty sure we’re gonna have more fun in Memphis. The pressure really isn’t on the B team to get out, just to do a credible job, and of course I’m a lot more fun than Coach V anyway. An oddity this year is the lack of visible drama about team reconfiguration. Every year when we get past Regionals and have to decide who will go on and in what role, somebody gets their panties in a knot and freaks out about how dumb the coaches are and how unfair, etc. After seven years of coaching I’ve come to recognize who is likely to get upset and to just wait for the outburst. This year I sense there is some dissatisfaction under the surface but it hasn’t been brought to me. I don’t know if that’s because of some lack of trust, or if everyone is just trying to behave as profesionally as possible in a pre-professional activity. I’m going to assume the latter until told otherwise and applaud them for it.
Good things that happened this week: I settled a case that my client didn’t want to take to trial. Personally I’m always game for a trial but she felt like she was likely to cry through the whole thing and ya’ll know I can’t stand people who cry. So I wholeheartedly agreed that we should settle and we got what she wanted out of it so that was good. I went to trial on another case and totally kicked ass, which is always good for my self-esteem. And I discovered some new music that I think I like a lot. And Max is home for a week. And I found very cute shoes at Marti&Liz for $9 after breaking the heel on a pair I wear often. And… a few other things but I think that’s all I want to share with the internet!
Max-ism of the day: Actually this happened last week but I haven’t written about it yet so I will. Max had a project at school where he was supposed to paint what his imagination looked like. The finished product had a lot of pink and fuschia in it. When I asked about that he thoughtfully said, “My imagination IS pinker than I thought it would be.” As if it just happened that way and he had nothing to do with it. It was pinker than I would have expected too.
Second Maxism of the day: My mom has been trying to instill religious beliefs in Max, a process which I find somewhat amusing because he is an admirably logical child and she has not had a great deal of success. So she introduced him to the concept of “what would Jesus do” a few weeks ago. She explained to him that you can ask yourself that when you make a decision because you know that Jesus would do the right thing. Yeah, it’s annoyng, but harmless so whatever. Then this morning as he was trying to decide whether to deliberately set off the security alarm or not, I heard him ask himself “What would Logan do.” Anybody who knows Logan must appreciate the hilarity in that. Anybody who doesn’t will have to take my word for it. I think he correctly anticipated what Logan would do though because he did choose to set it off. I barely stopped him in time, which I guess is what I get for not intervening sooner but sometimes you have to wait for the funny. Logan would likely have done it drunk and without pants, but other than that, spot on.
