Best laid plans

Somehow, despite my best intentions to post here more regularly, reality never seems to keep up.  And so, once again, I find myself writing the kind of blog post that I hate reading: the dreaded recap.

Of course, I have been busy, what with being in Switzerland and trying to take advantage of being back in Europe.  Oh, and those pesky classes that I have to attend.  Can’t forget those.  Still, even with taking five classes here I feel much less pressure and work much less than I do back home in Boston.  Indeed, right now I should be studying for a human rights final I will be taking this evening, but somehow I feel perfectly justified in sitting here and typing this up.

Since arriving here in Geneva, I have been able to do a bit of travelling around the country: St. Cergue, Chambery and Bern number among my day trips.   It is a fun little country to explore, and as a fellow exchange student remarked early on in the semester, living in Switzerland is a lot like living in a postcard.  Everything here is truly gorgeous.

View from the train up to Chambery

This one is a little hazy, but you get the idea.  One of my first weekends here, I went up to Chambery, which is a little town up in the mountains.  Every year they have a festival where they bring the sheep down to pasture in the valley for the winter.  They literally herd the sheep down the main road, and there is plenty of food and wine to be had.  It was a unique, and fun, experience.

Lausanne

After leaving Chambery, I spent some time in Lausanne, which is a very pretty town not too far from Geneva.  It is much more of a college town than Geneva is, and therefore had a younger vibe and a different atmosphere.  I was only able to spend a few hours here, but it was nice.

covered bridge in Lucerne

Another trip early on in my time here.  Lucerne is several hours away from Geneva by train, and this particular trip made for a strange day involving rain, bad food, enormous bugs, the circus and hockey riot police.  But that’s a story for another time.

As I said, Switzerland is nothing if not picturesque.  Although I can’t say I will miss my classes or the actual lifestyle in Geneva, I will miss the incredible views.

 

Grown up nomad

Last night I was trying to figure out if I would be able to manage a trip to someplace in Europe that I haven’t been (Croatia, for example), and it struck me, not for the first time, that I am incredibly lucky.

In my world, travel is more than just accepted.  It is normal.

I have done more travelling in my 27 years than many, many people in this world will get to do in their lifetimes.  I grew up with more exposure to foreign cultures than to my own (ah, the joy of being a TCK).   When I was in high school in Belgium, my swim team away meets were in different countries; I have stories that start, “one time when I was in Cairo for a swim meet…”.  Although I returned to my home state of California for college, I also lived in Paris for six months of my university life.  I spent this past summer working for an NGO in South Africa.  I am currently studying human rights law in Geneva, arguably one of the best places in the world to do so.  I have friends all over the world, literally.

I know that I am very lucky to have had all of these experiences, and I wouldn’t trade my life for the world.  I sincerely hope that I will continue to be able to travel this much as I grow up (and no, at 27, I am definitely not grown up).

Catching Up

Has it really been almost a year since my last post?

So much has happened.  I finished my 2L year in law school (yay!) after two gruelling semesters that I can only blame on myself.  Too many classes, too many activities.  Then I moved to South Africa for the summer, where I worked for an organization called Lawyers for Human Rights.  They do amazing work, and I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to work there for three months.  After that, it was back to the US for a month or so, starting with a vacation up at Lake Tahoe (awesome, as always).  I left Boston shortly after my birthday to move to Geneva for a semester abroad, and have been here for about a week and a half now.  I’m taking five classes, and may try to get an internship at one of the NGOs here.  So far, so good.

The lake, as seen from a vista point above St. Cergue.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here’s wishing everyone a happy and safe Thanksgiving weekend!

The hubby and I had a lovely Thanksgiving with our friends last night, and have been enjoying the time at home.  We both have work to do (I have outlining and he has grading), but it is nice to be able to spend an extra few days at home.  I hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend with their loved ones!

 

Officially a 2L

I am now officially a second year law student.  I’ve only had a week of classes, and already it feels like a whole different experience compared to 1L year.  I am actually (hallelujah!) interested in all of my classes, I like my professors, reading cases is much easier, and I generally have a better idea of what to expect from classes and exams.  To top it all off, the hubby has a new full-time teaching job, which means that I’ll actually get to spend some time with him this year.

Of  course, I still have a lot of work, and it will be a busy fall semester.  I’m taking administrative law, evidence, international law, and a seminar on the Constitution and foreign affairs.  I’m also on the international law journal, one of the leaders of Phi Alpha Delta, and am contemplating participating in a moot court program.  Outside of law school, I’ll also be busy helping with a pilot interview program for my alma mater.  So it may very well turn out to be a hectic semester, but I am actually looking forward to it.

Lazy summer day

For a number of reasons that I won’t disclose here, the past week has been tough.  I was very frustrated and upset for a lot of it, and so I am really glad that the weekend arrived.  I’ve had some time to relax and decompress, and am feeling much calmer.  Most of the issues that arose during the week have been sorted out, and I don’t feel like my life is spinning out of control anymore.  In short, I am doing much better; I just wanted to say that before moving on to the rest of this post.

Today was a fantastically lazy day.  I think it’s been months since I just relaxed all day and accomplished almost nothing.  The hubby and I were out last night with some friends, so I slept much later than normal this morning.  When I finally got out of bed and got ready for the day, I was all set for my usual Saturday routine of lots of cleaning and housekeeping.  And then… nothing happened.  It was a hot, humid day, and our house has no air conditioning and poor air circulation.  Even with our ceiling fans on high, on hot days the house can be stifling.

Today was just such a day, and when you combine warmth with sleep deprivation, it makes for a very sleepy day.  I managed to wash some dishes and get two loads of laundry done before my routine fell apart.  We watched an episode of Planet Earth (which, by the way, is amazing — I highly recommend it) and then both fell asleep.  Eventually I woke up, read a few chapters of The Confusion, and promptly fell back asleep again.  When I woke up again, it was time to make dinner.  We played some Guitar Hero after dinner, and have just been reading and browsing the web since then.

It’s now after midnight, and I feel like I got nothing done today.  It’s great.

Feeling of ick

I suddenly feel lost.  Like I thought I was standing on solid ground, and it turned out to be quicksand.  Like someone just pulled the plank out from under me.  Like someone knocked the wind from my lungs, and now I can’t breathe.

My world is falling apart, and I’m not sure how much more I can take.

The night before the dawn

Yes, I realize I haven’t posted anything new in a while.  I’ll write a quick recap in a little bit, but first I wanted to write down some thoughts that have been haunting me for a while.

First things first, for those of you who don’t know, I’ve been suffering from depression for a long time now.  Not the feeling sad for a day kind either; I’m talking about the actual, clinical, constantly feeling hopeless kind.  The events of the past year have made it very difficult for me to deal with everything, from personal problems to law school to family issues and everything in between.  I’ll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say that everything came to a head in April, and I’ve been in therapy and taking antidepressants since then.

Things have been getting better, but I still have those terrible moments where I feel overcome by pure and utter despair.  It’s hard to explain to anyone who has never experienced anything like it.  It’s an ugly, terrifying certainty that I’m a worthless human being, undeserving of love, burdening everyone around me.  It changes the way that I look at the world.  It becomes harder to remember the good things in my life and the positive things that I’ve achieved, and all the problems that I have become inflated by orders of magnitude.

It has taken me a very, very long time to truly realize that this is not an okay way to go through life, and that it handicaps my every waking breath.  Slowly, too slowly, I am learning to beat back those anguishing thoughts.  They still plague me, but I think I am starting to overcome them.  It is becoming easier to remember that I have accomplished a lot in my life, that my husband does love me, that I am worth caring about, and that every little setback does not mean that I am doomed to be a failure.

It will be a long, hard struggle, but I think I can see the glimmerings of light at the end of the tunnel.

Buried

I was recently asked what it felt like to be in law school, a question that I thought was an unusual variant of whether I like law school.  I replied that it felt like being buried under a pile of books, and, well, it does.

Putting aside the question of how much I like law school, the number of books I now own that are law-related is approaching the ridiculous.  First there are the casebooks, which as you might guess from the name contain court opinions.  Then there is the essential Black’s Law Dictionary, the law school student’s bible.  It makes sure I understand all the words used in the opinions, including all the Latin legal terms of art that judges like to throw in.  Then there are the hornbooks, which are overviews of the law.  Then there are the nutshells/outlines, which outline the black letter legal principles.  Then there are the Examples & Explanations books, which in addition to briefly describing legal concepts also provide questions for you to answer, and detailed answers to the questions.  And last but not least, the hated but indispensible BlueBook, which is the guide for how to cite anything and everything in a legal document.

Before you ask, no, that’s not all required reading.  Nonetheless, most people do go to the trouble of getting all the supplemental materials so that they understand what’s in the casebook (and of course, to do well on exams).  It all leads to having too much to read and not enough time; my bedtime reading during the semester tends to be one of my hornbooks.

All of which is a long, drawn out way of getting to my point: it’s really, really nice to be able to read for pleasure.  Spring break has been like coming up for air.

Idle hands

After a gruelling start to spring semester, I am finally on spring break.  My husband, of course, gets no such luxury, so I am still in Boston but enjoying not having to go to class.  It’s nice to be able to sleep in, take my dog for long walks and catch up on household chores.

It does, however, feel strange to not be doing schoolwork.  School breaks have always been like this for me; after months of working hard, it takes a while for me to wind down and just relax.  I always feel like I should be studying something, reading something, or writing something for the first few days of vacation.  Eventually I get to the point where I am able to relax, but that only lasts for so long before I start getting bored.  I’m just not good at doing nothing.  I like learning things and being intellectually challenged.

Over winter break, this tendency manifested itself through my picking up a cross-stitch project.  I hadn’t done any cross-stitching (or, really, any kinds of crafts) for ages, and thought it would be fun to give it a try.  Now, I find that I want to do something that challenges the side of me that loves math and science.  The last time I felt like this I bought a textbook and taught myself vector calculus.  I don’t have that kind of time on my hands now, but I might have a go at brushing up on my physical chemistry.

Yes, I really am that much of a nerd.