Whoosh...

Down the drain. My GPA, that is.

Yup. My open letter to the professors (below) must have been well received. It was a red letter day all around, actually. First, I walked in the rain towards the crossing only to miss the train by 30 seconds. Then, because I'd be late if I waited for the next train, I traded the solace of reading on a train for driving to the courthouse in ridiculous Californians-don't-have-a-clue-about-rain traffic. About 2 hours after I arrived, I checked the school website and took a sharp, painful intake of breath at the unpleasant surprise on my transcript.

Heads up: my newly informed opinion is that it's a hell of a lot easier not to care about grades when they are reasonably good. Trust me, if I could find a way to not care, I would. Of course, the two hours of criminal motions I sat through immediately after seeing my grade made me feel like even more of an ass. I don't really have any problems. Those people, they have real problems. Me, I've got prima donna, pretty pretty princess problems.

And it sucks. Because I'm really enjoying being in chambers.

Oh well. I'll have to keep telling myself that all I'm losing out on is a large pay cut for the privilege of working 60-90 hours per week. I won't believe it, because I'm in chambers now, and I'm having so much fun. Each day's work is a new combination of reading briefs and motions, researching topics, writing orders and memos to the judge on points he needs to understand. Just seeing all those briefs and motions and knowing what the judge wants to understand has made me feel like a better lawyer. In addition to all the work, I get to see talented and fledgling lawyers going through all the motions that I hope to one day go through. I get to learn from their skillful maneuvers and mistakes.

And the clerks have it even better. Sure, they give me some interesting things to research and I'm thankful for each and every opportunity, but it's still the drudgework. They get to keep the really juicy work for themselves. That is an opportunity that used to be a pipe-dream and now resides soundly in our freshly fixed plumbing, post-flush.

Lame.