A hodgepodge of events...

Brief synopsis of my first day of work at the Public Defenders office..

1) I have the CRAZIEST boss EVER. Educated at G-town law (eeek!), has taught at Harvard and Yale, is fluent in Spanish and uses the F word every other second. Asked us who wanted to go to law school, myself and another boy raised our hands and he responded with "yo, I'll hook you up" crazy crazy.
2) After hearing about a lot of his cases (many of which I cannot type out due to their either graphic nature or the vulgar way he told them...), we interviewed a potential client and his mother. It was absolutely eye opening and fascinating. 90% of his clients only speak Spanish and many are not documented in the united states. I never thought about how new citizens of the US wouldn't know our legal system that well (obviously it makes sense, but I just never thought deeply about it I guess) so the first 30 minutes were spent drawing diagrams about the American legal system, court procedures etc. I have a feeling this experience will be eye opening and humbling... And it has only been one day. Regardless of whether I stay here full time or not, I already feel like I've gained some valuable experience just from having witnessed a lot of public defense first hand.


*******update: of COURSE as soon as I finished my second day at Montgomery county, DHS called to say my security clearance finally went through! SO I will be starting tomorrow morning at 8:30 AM bright and early. Though I normally do not associate work and fun... (except at HS! ha), I am really looking forward to being on a set schedule, keeping busy all day long and being able to enjoy my time after work because I will have done something do deserve it. So, yay for working. Hopefully it is a great experience :)

This weekend has been pretty good so far. Friday night, I stayed in while the roomies went out to various places (nats game, bar etc). It was so nice to finally be focused and I spent the evening reading my book and getting a bunch of stuff that has been hanging over my head done. So now, with the job in order and that stuff out of the way, I am feeling 100 times better than I was at this time last week. Saturday, Tania and I spent the whole day shopping out at Pentagon City and the Potomac Shopping Center. We learned the transportation system pretty well, got TWO new pairs of shoes (like I need more shoes...), ate lunch at noodles and all that fun stuff. It was great and since yesterday was kind of a crappy day outside (it's been SO overcast since we've been here... ho hum) it was nice to have something else to do that was mostly inside. Today is BEAUTIFUL finally, so I will probably head down to king street and hang out down by the harbor or perhaps go down to the district and take some photos. Just another relaxing weekend day... Maybe I'll get motivated and work on my term paper... Just MAYBE.

Listening to... Grace Cathedral Hill by The Decemberists

Love always,

Amy