(no subject)
So, quick summary of my first year of law school: holy god, that was a lot of work. I was working 16 hour days (no joke) from mid-March until May 8, the day of my last exam, and then working halfheartedly on my journal submission for the week after that. I'm still trying to catch up on personal correspondence (including LJ) for the entire semester.
I'm in DC now for the summer, working for Public Knowledge. If you haven't heard of them, they're a public interest advocacy organization focusing individual rights in the digital age -- pretty much exactly what I want to do. They mostly work on copyright and telecommunications stuff. I'm supposed to do some blogging for them this summer on publicknowledge.org, which should be neat.
My feeling for the first few days has been: "So this is what it's like to enjoy your work!" The people are all great. It's not just the people at PK; I've met a bunch of folks from Google, EPIC, Yahoo, and other "key players" in tech law. There's been a good sense of camaraderie and goodwill, even when people disagree on issues. I guess this is the political process at work, from the inside.
I spent today at CFP (Computers, Freedom, and Privacy), an annual conference on... well, you've probably guessed. It was pretty freaking awesome -- I got to have lunch with Bruce Schneier and spend the day attending panels on a bunch of tech-law issues like cybersecurity and privacy, which is the kind of stuff I've been interested in since I was little. (Heck, I went into algebra in large part because I wanted to do work with cryptography.) The only "disquieting" thing was that... well, I've been reading The Stand for the first time, and the bad guys have these necklaces that are made of a black stone with a red scar in it that's shaped like an eye, or maybe a key. The CFP logo?
I actually like DC a lot more than I expected, although I miss lirelyn terribly. I'm living in a house with a few other folks who seem pretty decent, though my room is basically empty except for a mattress and a few piles of my junk on the floor. (Not that her being here would magically make furniture appear, but it's just not home without her.) Still, the weather isn't too hot yet, there's decent public transit, and the people are a lot friendlier than I would've thought. And I think I know a lot more people around here than I had expected.
Plus, I get to play dress-up whenever I want! Seriously, if you try walking around in the Midwest in a suit, you get looks. Around here, it's par for the course.
I'm in DC now for the summer, working for Public Knowledge. If you haven't heard of them, they're a public interest advocacy organization focusing individual rights in the digital age -- pretty much exactly what I want to do. They mostly work on copyright and telecommunications stuff. I'm supposed to do some blogging for them this summer on publicknowledge.org, which should be neat.
My feeling for the first few days has been: "So this is what it's like to enjoy your work!" The people are all great. It's not just the people at PK; I've met a bunch of folks from Google, EPIC, Yahoo, and other "key players" in tech law. There's been a good sense of camaraderie and goodwill, even when people disagree on issues. I guess this is the political process at work, from the inside.
I spent today at CFP (Computers, Freedom, and Privacy), an annual conference on... well, you've probably guessed. It was pretty freaking awesome -- I got to have lunch with Bruce Schneier and spend the day attending panels on a bunch of tech-law issues like cybersecurity and privacy, which is the kind of stuff I've been interested in since I was little. (Heck, I went into algebra in large part because I wanted to do work with cryptography.) The only "disquieting" thing was that... well, I've been reading The Stand for the first time, and the bad guys have these necklaces that are made of a black stone with a red scar in it that's shaped like an eye, or maybe a key. The CFP logo?
I actually like DC a lot more than I expected, although I miss lirelyn terribly. I'm living in a house with a few other folks who seem pretty decent, though my room is basically empty except for a mattress and a few piles of my junk on the floor. (Not that her being here would magically make furniture appear, but it's just not home without her.) Still, the weather isn't too hot yet, there's decent public transit, and the people are a lot friendlier than I would've thought. And I think I know a lot more people around here than I had expected.
Plus, I get to play dress-up whenever I want! Seriously, if you try walking around in the Midwest in a suit, you get looks. Around here, it's par for the course.