Complaints
Don't ask me why I don't really post on here anymore. I still am not working as a lawyer, so you'd think with the amount of time I'm in this apartment every day, I'd be posting all the time.
I don't know how, but the days do seem to go by fast.
I did get in a rut about applying to places in GR, so I did stop applying for awhile, being discouraged and all. You see, everything in my life thus far has been relatively in my control. Take school, for example. If I just study harder, and spend more time memorizing, I'll get better grades. There's no telling that if I just apply to more places, I'll get hired. Sure, the odds would be better of getting something, but really, everything is solely dependent on the firms and their financial status. It's kind of out of my control. And that sucks. I'm a person who's, at all times, VERY in control of everything around me. I never, ever put myself in situations where I'll feel like I'll lose control...which I think is why I pooped out on applying alltogether. Mike's attitude about it started to change. He got frustrated with me. He'd ask what I did all day, and when I told him the things I did, he discounted every single thing except if I had applied to a job that day. It's like I'd explain to him that I was busy, and I got this done, and that done, but he started not caring. Boy, talk about a situation driving a wedge in a relationship. He was downright mean, which isn't what I needed. I guess I've been coddled all my life. My parents and grandparents jump up to support me at even the tiniest things, but Mike just couldn't do it, anymore. We went for a few days where we barely spoke to one another, because, really, what was the point? He was just going to yell at me / be mean to me for not applying, and I was just going to either cry and be disappointed, or dig in my heels and tell him that only I can control what I do. He said now that we're married, big decisions like what I do to make money are joint decisions; I said that I'm not some wimpy girl who married and lost all identity of myself and that if I damn well want a break in applying, or even to stop applying all together, then that was my right. So goes the story. Is it normal to think about how badly you want a divorce within 3 months of getting married?
Ironically, the thing that got us out of this rut was that Mike had jury duty at the beginning of this week. Shock...he forgot to go when he was actually scheduled, which was last week. But, of course, he goes in on Monday and wouldn't you know he gets picked for the jury. They considered not letting him stay, being that his wife is a lawyer (I am actually a lawyer, now...I've paid my dues and got my P-number), and he has relatives who were/are police officers. But, I think the thing that tipped it in their favor was that he has a Master's Degree, and in the end, attorneys hope to have smart people on the jury because they will hopefully make their decision based on the evidence presented to them, rather than on something dumb and simple, like whether the defendant is pretty or not. And what are the odds that it was an auto no-fault trial, the thing I'd love, love, love to do if I had my druthers. He couldn't tell me much about it during the trial, of course, but my interest was piqued and his depression seemingly went away. The first day he was gone at the trial, I actually applied to two jobs with the State. The second day, I researched more firms and printed off a couple cover letters. I still have to get everything around and send those, which I'll do today. But, it made me more excited to work as an attorney to hear all of the stories of the trial once it was over. So, here's to hoping things stay okay for awhile. We have to renew our lease here if we're going to, which I believe we are. No point in moving to GR with me having no promising leads on anything there, yet. Meijer is here, and he'll work there for at least 8 more months, and maybe 30 more years. Who knows, lol. I guess if I do get something up there, I'll commute for the first few months. And then we'll move up there. Life. Yet again, it bugs me to not know exactly what is going to happen, because I certainly love, love, love to be in control.
Here's the progress on Mike's Master's Project: It's done...I think. Before Christmas, we had everything we need, including permission from someone at the State of Michigan's Department of Education to use their materials in his Personal Curriculum Handbook. He had to put that permission into his paper, make a few pagination changes, and send it off once more for the advisor to okay before getting it bound and turning it in. If it were me, even though I couldn't turn the stuff in until after GVSU opened after Christmas break, I still would have done the part where I finished it and sent it off to the advisor. But, we were completely busy over Christmas (with 7 family Christmases, basically in the span of 2 weeks), so I understand why he didn't get it done. It took tons and tons of time to fart around with the pagination. Headers and footers are easy if you're starting at 1 and going to X. But, we had some sections that were with footers like i, ii, and iii, and some sections with headers 1-X, but then some sections where the headers were supposed to start over again at 1, only to return back to the first numbering later on. So, we had to employ the page break tool in order to create various sections for the headers and footers. Every time you changed one section, the next one seemed to change, somehow. It was a complete mess. But, we got it done, submitted it over email, and finally got the instruction from the advisor to: "bind, baby, bind." Both the project's syllabus and the advisor mentioned that we should get it bound at the Kinko's in GR on Fulton, around the corner from where we used to live. They know exactly how to bind these projects. Mike dropped it off and they said he should talk to another associate, who is the "master" at doing the binding for these School of Ed. projects. Good. So, Mike and I drove up there the next day to pick them up and turn them into GVSU. Yay. We're done!!!!!!!! *insert sound of spinning record going off the track* Okay, so we're not done. We get an email from Mike's advisor, saying that he's not sure why Mike got the binding that he did, but it's the wrong one and we need to re-do it. Seriously? It has to be a flat-edge binding and not a spiral binding. Okay. Damn. But the advisor said he found out that Kinko's' binding machine for the flat binding broke, and they just don't do the right ones anymore. No problem, he says, because DeVos Center's copy and printing shop does the correct bindings, too. We need to go there. Mike had jury duty, so he asked me nicely if I could run up there on Tuesday to get the correct binding done and turn them into the School of Ed. Sure. I don't do anything with my time, anyways, I suppose. I got there at like 11am. Parked in the ramp, walked to DeVos. I got myself organized and headed to the print shop with the newly-printed projects. "Uhhh," says the pimply, probably-freshman worker..."we don't have our machine that does those, anymore." Finally, someone who knew something came out and told me that their machine, though they had just got it 3 months ago, had broken and they have no idea when it'll be fixed. He said no print shops in the area do these bindings that he knows of, and the reason Kinko's probably stopped doing them is that they and GV were actually losing money on these projects, because the binding materials cost more than anybody would charge for them. Big mother effer! What the hell was I supposed to do now? (1) I've never met Mike's advisor, and I didn't want to ask him what to do because then he'd know that it was me, and not Lloyd, who was getting it bound. (2) I don't know what the correct binding even looks like, so even if I desperately try to find other GR print shops, how will I know what to tell them to do? (3) I didn't want to just give up, because I was already in GR and I wanted to get it turned in. I called Mike frantically hoping that they'd be on lunch break for jury duty. No such luck. I stood in DeVos, having a pity party moment. I went to the bathroom. Okay. I had a semi-plan. I knew the library keeps copies of these projects for others to read. I'd go to the library, ask to see a copy of one, and then take pictures of the binding to show print shops. Even though I always, always, always have my digital camera with me, this time I didn't, of course. I'd left it in the trunk of my car with my purse and just took my wallet and phone in the school bag I was carrying. I even thought when I left my car, "will I need my camera for anything? Nah!" So, I was going to take pictures on my phone. I can't imagine how dumb it would look to a print shop to show them my tiny screen on my phone and say, "do that!" So, I went to the bathroom and headed down to the library. I asked the man at the desk to see one of the Master's projects so that I could see what the binding looked like. He seemed a little suspicious, and I explained that both Kinko's and the GV print shop no longer have the correct machine. He said, "here's the lady you want to talk to," as a lady was walking up, clearly having heard we were talking about these projects. Apparently, she knows a lot about them. I explained to her that GV's machine just broke. She also seemed skeptical at first. She's like, "well they just got it!" I said I knew, that they had gotten it 3 months ago and it had already broken, and that they have no idea when they would get it back, and that they're not even sure how badly they want it back since they're losing money on all of these. She got upset, saying, "That's ridiculous! I told him to charge $10 on those. That's what Kinko's charged when they did them." It's like, okay lady, I'm just the messenger. She asked who my advisor was, and I had to explain that I was doing this for my husband, and that his advisor is Shawn Bultsema. She said she would email all the School of Ed. profs and tell them what's up. In the meantime, she pulled a business card out of a drawer and told me this place will bind them. She wrote down the address for me and told me to go there. It was downtown, on Monroe Center. So, I got in my car and drove around until I found the right address. I put nearly all my change in the meter, thinking that it would take them awhile to get it done. It was in this old building, up on the 7th floor. The elevator shook so badly that I was already thinking about how they would identify my body when I died from the elevator cables breaking. I found the place and he asked when I'd like to come back and pick it up. Boo. He said they could definitely have it the next day, but could probably have it this afternoon. I chose that option. I was already in GR. Let's finally get this damn project over with. So, how the heck do I kill like 4 hours? I was hungry and wanted lunch. But I also thought that if I was going to see a movie, I needed to do it now because I didn't want it going too late. Afterall, once I picked up the stuff I still had to get it back to the School of Ed. by 5. I had Celebration GR programmed into my phone from when I lived there still, and I called around. All the movies started at like 12-something (I was already too late for those) and 3-something (those would be too late to get me back to pick up the stuff by 5). I needed one preferably in the 1:00-ish range. I finally found that the Woodland Celebration, which plays older movies, had 2012 playing at 1. Not enough time to get myself some lunch first, but I did have a package of Pop Tarts in my car which I ate on the way there, plus I got popcorn at the movie. Decent movie. Kind of corny. Kind of cheesy. (Very weird because when I came back to Lansing that night, I found out about the huge earthquake in Haiti, and it seemed like an extension of the movie since the world was destroyed by giant earthquakes in the movie). I watched that, and went back to pick up the projects. I was hoping very much that they would be done, because I only had 1 quarter left, which on Monroe Center, apparently only gets you 10 minutes. They were done! Yay! They looked just like the other projects at the library! Yay! I turned them in and was glad to be out of there! My regret is that that morning, I'd re-read the advisor's email, and figured out he'd wanted us to add a front cover to show through the binding window, in addition to the title page we'd already had. I quickly came up with a cover page, but I put Lloyd Service, instead of on the title page, which said Lloyd Michael Service. Oops. They don't match. It bugs me. But they're turned in, and done. And I don't think they'll make us re-do it because of that. But then again, you never know!!! They're very, very strict.
Next week, I'm doing this mock trial thingy. I thought I didn't have my materials, but turns out they were at the apartment office. So, I was panicking because I'd written the lady and she said I should have gotten them already. So, I started preparing like a week later than everyone else. But, I figure, basically everyone else is already working, so I have more time to prepare now that I do have it. I'm pretty nervous for this thing. I'm one of like 3 out of 40 that don't seem to have jobs yet, based on the address list. So, I'm already starting out feeling extra inadequate. We actually do opening statements, direct exam, cross exam, impeachment, introduction of exhibits, and closing arguments. Oh, and they videotape us. Oh, and there's really powerful GR attorneys from really big firms there telling us what we did wrong. Why on earth did I sign up for this treatment? Lord only knows. I was just hoping it would look good on a resume and might help me make some contacts for jobs. I'm sure I'll be so nervous that I'll be all blotchy, ready to cry, and wanting to crap my pants and run out. That would be a great way to start my professional reputation, huh? Ugg.
Well, off to do the trillion things on my to-do list, which is surprisingly long for being only a (1) stay-at-home wife, and (2) stay-at-home-kitty-mommy. Haha. I've subbed 3 times, but it's definitely challenging, and now I'm not as excited about it. With this trial thing next week, I'm not sure I'll sub before the next week and a half. Money's great. Just got to work up the motivation to do it.
Stephanie
I don't know how, but the days do seem to go by fast.
I did get in a rut about applying to places in GR, so I did stop applying for awhile, being discouraged and all. You see, everything in my life thus far has been relatively in my control. Take school, for example. If I just study harder, and spend more time memorizing, I'll get better grades. There's no telling that if I just apply to more places, I'll get hired. Sure, the odds would be better of getting something, but really, everything is solely dependent on the firms and their financial status. It's kind of out of my control. And that sucks. I'm a person who's, at all times, VERY in control of everything around me. I never, ever put myself in situations where I'll feel like I'll lose control...which I think is why I pooped out on applying alltogether. Mike's attitude about it started to change. He got frustrated with me. He'd ask what I did all day, and when I told him the things I did, he discounted every single thing except if I had applied to a job that day. It's like I'd explain to him that I was busy, and I got this done, and that done, but he started not caring. Boy, talk about a situation driving a wedge in a relationship. He was downright mean, which isn't what I needed. I guess I've been coddled all my life. My parents and grandparents jump up to support me at even the tiniest things, but Mike just couldn't do it, anymore. We went for a few days where we barely spoke to one another, because, really, what was the point? He was just going to yell at me / be mean to me for not applying, and I was just going to either cry and be disappointed, or dig in my heels and tell him that only I can control what I do. He said now that we're married, big decisions like what I do to make money are joint decisions; I said that I'm not some wimpy girl who married and lost all identity of myself and that if I damn well want a break in applying, or even to stop applying all together, then that was my right. So goes the story. Is it normal to think about how badly you want a divorce within 3 months of getting married?
Ironically, the thing that got us out of this rut was that Mike had jury duty at the beginning of this week. Shock...he forgot to go when he was actually scheduled, which was last week. But, of course, he goes in on Monday and wouldn't you know he gets picked for the jury. They considered not letting him stay, being that his wife is a lawyer (I am actually a lawyer, now...I've paid my dues and got my P-number), and he has relatives who were/are police officers. But, I think the thing that tipped it in their favor was that he has a Master's Degree, and in the end, attorneys hope to have smart people on the jury because they will hopefully make their decision based on the evidence presented to them, rather than on something dumb and simple, like whether the defendant is pretty or not. And what are the odds that it was an auto no-fault trial, the thing I'd love, love, love to do if I had my druthers. He couldn't tell me much about it during the trial, of course, but my interest was piqued and his depression seemingly went away. The first day he was gone at the trial, I actually applied to two jobs with the State. The second day, I researched more firms and printed off a couple cover letters. I still have to get everything around and send those, which I'll do today. But, it made me more excited to work as an attorney to hear all of the stories of the trial once it was over. So, here's to hoping things stay okay for awhile. We have to renew our lease here if we're going to, which I believe we are. No point in moving to GR with me having no promising leads on anything there, yet. Meijer is here, and he'll work there for at least 8 more months, and maybe 30 more years. Who knows, lol. I guess if I do get something up there, I'll commute for the first few months. And then we'll move up there. Life. Yet again, it bugs me to not know exactly what is going to happen, because I certainly love, love, love to be in control.
Here's the progress on Mike's Master's Project: It's done...I think. Before Christmas, we had everything we need, including permission from someone at the State of Michigan's Department of Education to use their materials in his Personal Curriculum Handbook. He had to put that permission into his paper, make a few pagination changes, and send it off once more for the advisor to okay before getting it bound and turning it in. If it were me, even though I couldn't turn the stuff in until after GVSU opened after Christmas break, I still would have done the part where I finished it and sent it off to the advisor. But, we were completely busy over Christmas (with 7 family Christmases, basically in the span of 2 weeks), so I understand why he didn't get it done. It took tons and tons of time to fart around with the pagination. Headers and footers are easy if you're starting at 1 and going to X. But, we had some sections that were with footers like i, ii, and iii, and some sections with headers 1-X, but then some sections where the headers were supposed to start over again at 1, only to return back to the first numbering later on. So, we had to employ the page break tool in order to create various sections for the headers and footers. Every time you changed one section, the next one seemed to change, somehow. It was a complete mess. But, we got it done, submitted it over email, and finally got the instruction from the advisor to: "bind, baby, bind." Both the project's syllabus and the advisor mentioned that we should get it bound at the Kinko's in GR on Fulton, around the corner from where we used to live. They know exactly how to bind these projects. Mike dropped it off and they said he should talk to another associate, who is the "master" at doing the binding for these School of Ed. projects. Good. So, Mike and I drove up there the next day to pick them up and turn them into GVSU. Yay. We're done!!!!!!!! *insert sound of spinning record going off the track* Okay, so we're not done. We get an email from Mike's advisor, saying that he's not sure why Mike got the binding that he did, but it's the wrong one and we need to re-do it. Seriously? It has to be a flat-edge binding and not a spiral binding. Okay. Damn. But the advisor said he found out that Kinko's' binding machine for the flat binding broke, and they just don't do the right ones anymore. No problem, he says, because DeVos Center's copy and printing shop does the correct bindings, too. We need to go there. Mike had jury duty, so he asked me nicely if I could run up there on Tuesday to get the correct binding done and turn them into the School of Ed. Sure. I don't do anything with my time, anyways, I suppose. I got there at like 11am. Parked in the ramp, walked to DeVos. I got myself organized and headed to the print shop with the newly-printed projects. "Uhhh," says the pimply, probably-freshman worker..."we don't have our machine that does those, anymore." Finally, someone who knew something came out and told me that their machine, though they had just got it 3 months ago, had broken and they have no idea when it'll be fixed. He said no print shops in the area do these bindings that he knows of, and the reason Kinko's probably stopped doing them is that they and GV were actually losing money on these projects, because the binding materials cost more than anybody would charge for them. Big mother effer! What the hell was I supposed to do now? (1) I've never met Mike's advisor, and I didn't want to ask him what to do because then he'd know that it was me, and not Lloyd, who was getting it bound. (2) I don't know what the correct binding even looks like, so even if I desperately try to find other GR print shops, how will I know what to tell them to do? (3) I didn't want to just give up, because I was already in GR and I wanted to get it turned in. I called Mike frantically hoping that they'd be on lunch break for jury duty. No such luck. I stood in DeVos, having a pity party moment. I went to the bathroom. Okay. I had a semi-plan. I knew the library keeps copies of these projects for others to read. I'd go to the library, ask to see a copy of one, and then take pictures of the binding to show print shops. Even though I always, always, always have my digital camera with me, this time I didn't, of course. I'd left it in the trunk of my car with my purse and just took my wallet and phone in the school bag I was carrying. I even thought when I left my car, "will I need my camera for anything? Nah!" So, I was going to take pictures on my phone. I can't imagine how dumb it would look to a print shop to show them my tiny screen on my phone and say, "do that!" So, I went to the bathroom and headed down to the library. I asked the man at the desk to see one of the Master's projects so that I could see what the binding looked like. He seemed a little suspicious, and I explained that both Kinko's and the GV print shop no longer have the correct machine. He said, "here's the lady you want to talk to," as a lady was walking up, clearly having heard we were talking about these projects. Apparently, she knows a lot about them. I explained to her that GV's machine just broke. She also seemed skeptical at first. She's like, "well they just got it!" I said I knew, that they had gotten it 3 months ago and it had already broken, and that they have no idea when they would get it back, and that they're not even sure how badly they want it back since they're losing money on all of these. She got upset, saying, "That's ridiculous! I told him to charge $10 on those. That's what Kinko's charged when they did them." It's like, okay lady, I'm just the messenger. She asked who my advisor was, and I had to explain that I was doing this for my husband, and that his advisor is Shawn Bultsema. She said she would email all the School of Ed. profs and tell them what's up. In the meantime, she pulled a business card out of a drawer and told me this place will bind them. She wrote down the address for me and told me to go there. It was downtown, on Monroe Center. So, I got in my car and drove around until I found the right address. I put nearly all my change in the meter, thinking that it would take them awhile to get it done. It was in this old building, up on the 7th floor. The elevator shook so badly that I was already thinking about how they would identify my body when I died from the elevator cables breaking. I found the place and he asked when I'd like to come back and pick it up. Boo. He said they could definitely have it the next day, but could probably have it this afternoon. I chose that option. I was already in GR. Let's finally get this damn project over with. So, how the heck do I kill like 4 hours? I was hungry and wanted lunch. But I also thought that if I was going to see a movie, I needed to do it now because I didn't want it going too late. Afterall, once I picked up the stuff I still had to get it back to the School of Ed. by 5. I had Celebration GR programmed into my phone from when I lived there still, and I called around. All the movies started at like 12-something (I was already too late for those) and 3-something (those would be too late to get me back to pick up the stuff by 5). I needed one preferably in the 1:00-ish range. I finally found that the Woodland Celebration, which plays older movies, had 2012 playing at 1. Not enough time to get myself some lunch first, but I did have a package of Pop Tarts in my car which I ate on the way there, plus I got popcorn at the movie. Decent movie. Kind of corny. Kind of cheesy. (Very weird because when I came back to Lansing that night, I found out about the huge earthquake in Haiti, and it seemed like an extension of the movie since the world was destroyed by giant earthquakes in the movie). I watched that, and went back to pick up the projects. I was hoping very much that they would be done, because I only had 1 quarter left, which on Monroe Center, apparently only gets you 10 minutes. They were done! Yay! They looked just like the other projects at the library! Yay! I turned them in and was glad to be out of there! My regret is that that morning, I'd re-read the advisor's email, and figured out he'd wanted us to add a front cover to show through the binding window, in addition to the title page we'd already had. I quickly came up with a cover page, but I put Lloyd Service, instead of on the title page, which said Lloyd Michael Service. Oops. They don't match. It bugs me. But they're turned in, and done. And I don't think they'll make us re-do it because of that. But then again, you never know!!! They're very, very strict.
Next week, I'm doing this mock trial thingy. I thought I didn't have my materials, but turns out they were at the apartment office. So, I was panicking because I'd written the lady and she said I should have gotten them already. So, I started preparing like a week later than everyone else. But, I figure, basically everyone else is already working, so I have more time to prepare now that I do have it. I'm pretty nervous for this thing. I'm one of like 3 out of 40 that don't seem to have jobs yet, based on the address list. So, I'm already starting out feeling extra inadequate. We actually do opening statements, direct exam, cross exam, impeachment, introduction of exhibits, and closing arguments. Oh, and they videotape us. Oh, and there's really powerful GR attorneys from really big firms there telling us what we did wrong. Why on earth did I sign up for this treatment? Lord only knows. I was just hoping it would look good on a resume and might help me make some contacts for jobs. I'm sure I'll be so nervous that I'll be all blotchy, ready to cry, and wanting to crap my pants and run out. That would be a great way to start my professional reputation, huh? Ugg.
Well, off to do the trillion things on my to-do list, which is surprisingly long for being only a (1) stay-at-home wife, and (2) stay-at-home-kitty-mommy. Haha. I've subbed 3 times, but it's definitely challenging, and now I'm not as excited about it. With this trial thing next week, I'm not sure I'll sub before the next week and a half. Money's great. Just got to work up the motivation to do it.
Stephanie