The Energy

I am so filled with energy, enthusiasm, and excitement. There are so many things I am excited about that I keep meaning to write each day, and then each day slips away from me without me sharing all that is going on. So I am going to blurb it. . .stream of consciousness style.

• The movie: Tonight I saw The Lost Boys of the Sudan. Wow. I heard about it in some mass email from the jewish student organization. It was a tiny blurb, noting that the JSO was cosponsoring the film with the black cultural center. I grabbed Darryl and Sara and off we went. It was compelling. I loved it. You must see it. Shockingly, we were the only three people at the screening except for the people running the film. There are emotional, poignant moments in the movie that truly affected me. The moments that touched me the most. . . I wish that I could write about the movie in the way that could make you feel what I felt while I watched it, but my mind tonight moves so much faster than my fingers. Listening to the boys talking on the phone to each other and to their relatives in the refuge camps in Kenya. . . watching the boys learn how to work a factory job. . . seeing the boys Americanized over the course of the year. . . feeling the disappointment of the boys who thought they were coming for an education but were not supported in their pursuit of it. . .experiencing the grace of the boys as they were cut from basketball teams, their rent checks went missing, and their friends abandoned them. . . hearing the hope of the boys who wanted to return to their home and their village and install electricity after taking a correspondence course.

• The Summer: This summer I am going to intern at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. When I visited with them over spring break, I felt an immediate connection. It felt like me. It felt like where I want to be and what I want to be doing. I will work on various tasks from sorting through the paper work from one of the longest running desegregation cases to NCLB issues to preparing for a conference presentation on recent education case law. It is everything that I want to do. Admittedly, it is a little anxiety provoking, as a former teacher, to think that I will be spending my summer learning about the state level of education. But, it is also invigorating. This whole summer job looking process has made me realize that I came here to do something. I opened my mind to different possibilities, but now I am ready to be really re-focused on making a difference. It was amazing to be with the legal people at the state level and hear them talking about remembering that the bottom line is working on doing what is best for the kids. I am also working part time as a research assistant to earn the money required for in state tuition, so the summer will be busy, busy, busy. But, I am actually excited about the research as well. It may sound dorky, but I like research.

• The next two years: At first, I was disappointed with the choices and the scheduling and the hassle of thinking about the next two years of law school. Now I am thrilled. I thought that I couldn’t find anything that I wanted to take, but now I am really excited about the classes I am talking both in the fall and the winter. I’ve looked beyond the scheduling conflict and am really starting to think about some of the issues I will get to learn about. . . Education law. . . gender and the law. . . fair housing. . .employment discrimination. . .family law. . . constitutional law. I am getting very excited about my second year. I also found a class outside the law school called “History of U.S. Educational Policy.” I gained permission from the Dean to take the course and have emailed with the professor. Her husband is a lawyer and she thinks that I will really enjoy the course. I am always happiest when I am making my own path, when I decide what I want to do, focus, and pursue it. I am finally getting there with the law school thing. Of course, I got there through so many conversations with so many people who have been encouraging, engaging, and supportive. Thank you.

Now the only thing bothering me is that my blog toolbar has disappeared from Word. If you know how to get it back, please comment me!