Different Decembers

NB: If you are here from Holidailies, please leave me a comment...I don't have a site tracker and love feedback.

How is this December different from last year?

How is this December like last December? So many things have shifted and changed in the last twelve months, it's hard to "unpack" it all - as my Civ Pro professor might say.

Let's start with the obvious: for the first time in roughly nine years, I'm not living in what I might term my home state, I'm not working full time, and I am back in school. We lived in a house which we owned...and which we recently sold to facilitate the move. Last December, I was slowly learning to hate my job, and was slipping down a slope of denial, since every time I got a letter from a law school it was a waitlist or rejection. Fortunately, the one I currently attend had waitlisted me. There was a LOT less snow on the ground. I liked my daughter's school a LOT more. I had a gym membership. I was carpooling, fighting an hour commute each way on roads that were consistently under construction.

I've rounded the first turn and am into the backstretch of my first year of law school. We are no longer landed gentry, as we rent from my university. I like the idea of not being responsible for my house-outside of normal upkeep and cleaning. I am not enamored with the part time job that I have, but I am thrilled with school and with the volunteer clerkship I was placed in this fall. We're looking for a permanent school for the girl, and my drive to work is ten minutes, tops.

I did something yesterday before my Civ Pro final...a move I'd never previously contemplated but felt absolutely wonderful in the execution. I went to the registrar's office and filled out the forms necessary for permission to enter a dual-degree program. At my school, if one is already enrolled in the law school, one must petition the dean to be allowed to apply for a dual degree program. I can only assume it's a formality-if I am not approved due to grades or whatever, I will petition again at the end of spring, in order to start the dual-degree in Fall.

When I chose my school, I did so because there was a specific dual-degree program by which I'd been intrigued. However, the program for which I actually petitioned was not the library science degree I had intended, but rather an MFA in Creative Writing.

For some reason, law school has awakened in me the ability to write things unrelated to law school. I have been so profuse and prolific that I have started a blog and have delved into other (private) fictional forays. I even contemplated NaNoWriMo, if for no other reason than to say I put out 50,000 words in one month. They sound like strange bedfellows, the JD and the MFA, and both are terminal degrees, meaning that I can teach on the university level if I so choose. The thought of teaching creative writing is a balm for me - the wounds of first semester finals are open, angry and red, threatening to become infected.

Allowing myself the idea that you don't have to really become a lawyer after all this, not really, there are other things you can do... is like Neosporin to me. Only less smelly.

Two finals to prepare for next weekend. The thought of reviewing promissory estoppel and the elements of certain crimes in model penal codes just has me jumping with joy unabandoned.

Can't you tell?