My Thoughts All Out

I just got back from cookie making party! (see picture).

I've been needing a lot of sleep lately. Not sure why. Its the last week of classes and I am kinda of tired of things. I crave novelty. I like change. Its hard for me to accept stability in some ways.

All in all I am quite impressed with my past three months, the progress I never felt last year as I navigating through the first year of law school I feel now.

I wrote my 33 page paper and I was proud of it. Not because it was a stellar piece of academic writing but because it was a great tool for me to connect what I "worked" on this summer to what I am learning and I need to learn at an Institution like Law school and it forced me to have ownerships on topics that then became chapters in my case book for class, making me feel like I have a handle on topics in a unique fashion. And its (my paper) a work in progress and I am transforming and improving it as part of a dialgoue with my mentor Smita which is both a constructive criticism but also a means by which I am discovering myself as a "human rights lawyer" and she has taken such an interest in helping me find my "own voice" and bridging the passions I have with the fields of work out there. She is taking me from my college days of seeing the world through globalization and neo-colonialsm and feeling impassioned at the injustices that lingered in Africa and Asia as a product of Western domination and translating and finding its place in international human rights LAW (which is actually a harder task than one would anticipate). I told her today that I am impressed that her advice is never "sound bytes" with me, like she has taken an interest in knowing me and appreciating what i can give and what kind of environment i could gain the most from. Its a rare relationship that I am immensely grateful for.

And my Immigrant Rights clinic - I honestly do not think there goes a day in which I don't stop and thank the greater powers that I somehow made it into my clinic. At some point I was scared that my inability to "take on" the system and be the poster-child (let's not re-live my long string of rejections for scholarships) would rob me of the opportunities I so strongly desired. Some how, some way Nancy and Mayra decided to take a chance on me and for that - my life at law school has completely transformed. I love the work, I love the weekly meetings and individual teaching I get from both of them, the wealth of not just "knowledge" like an academic lecturing me, but how to conduct relationships and how to struggle with the sensitive dilemmas that come up in our work. They are an inspiration. I love my peers in the seminar, who have once against taught me what it means to be a good listener and give thoughful feedback and who have shown me a community totally free from the competitive spirit that permeates the rest of law school. I love that I learn from them and that there is such a mutual respect and encouragement and that I feel that they know me - they know me in a way that means they can tease me about all the things I know i deserve to be teased about (cause everyone in my life , my whole life has teased me about it, yes I am messy!). And I love good challenging work that makes me think, that doesn't make me bored and force me to "multi-task" by chatting online and that I have accountability to persons, to organizations and that I am providing a service that is in need and there are stakes about it. As I said before, there are days it scares the living daylights out of me, the sense that my actions have a real impact on someone in a real sense, it sometimes an emotional rollercoaster but I gain and hopefully also give so much through it.

But at some point it makes me nervous. The whole thing. My life. Like its like at any moment it will all collapse. And as finals come around I worry that I fall into traps from last year. Because in many ways there is a lot about law school that hasn't changed since last year. I may have changed someway, I think I only changed in somuch that I feel like I am much more like myself. Although sometimes I get tired of being a human rights activist or whatever it is that I am or call myself. Sometimes I just want to be around people, like kids and teenagers (for instancewhen I went on this retreat with my group client for their members and they brought their children) - because kids don't care at all what I do, they don't ask, and it makes no real impression on them. But i have fun around them. Just fun. And I am Reena. I miss that. The nonsense. Not like calm AT law school, I rather be a stress-case with too much 'substantive' work to do at law school. My downtime in that environment always makes me feel a bit uneasy. Like talking aloud about the stuff, analyzing or deconstructing it just reminds me how much I still don't like law school "culture" or makes me feel like my relations with others are still tenous. I rather not say anything at all. And talking about what I do like, well sometimes it feels like I am bragging or showing off. Its frusturating cause the reason I like what I like is because its a good fit for me. I could be accomplishing a whole lot more or a whole lot less in a more prestiguous or less prestiguous environment and it wouldn't phase how I felt about the people and the work i do. I remember my friends telling me last year that I should just be proud and not internalize those things.

But the real point is that I miss the nonsense. When that stuff doesn't matter or even seem to really come into the conversation. When you get past the debriefing stage with old friends and you just crack witty remarks or analyze the angle in which you park your car or just shake your hips and sing a Karoke Mary song togther. I am good at nonsense. I am even good a cross-cultural nonsense.

Tonight I am tired and I am going to probably oversleep cause I have been tending to do that. Stability scare me cause I sometimes think everyone is just going to get really sick of me, or if I like things, that something terrible will happen to take it all away. Last year i thought I would really have to tackle the stability but so much of my first year was an emotional instability built in to the system. Now I have to face these demons on my own. Somewhere along the way this year I lost a friend who was a good confidante for these types of things, and its been hard not to be able to have that person to share my thoughts with.

And those are all the stirrings from my brain. Good Night!