the time has come, the walrus said...

This blog has contained some of the most exciting adventures I have taken. Sometimes though, the adventure in life is not traveling to some far off land but rather life itself. Perhaps it is the eternal student in me but I have decided to pursue a long-time goal of mine and become a lawyer; I have spent the last 6 months or so on this new adventure, a word that when to used to describe these last 6 months could be a vast understatement. I began studying for the LSAT in late September and took the test in December. I applied for financial aid in late January and didn't start applying to schools until February. The last three months have been filled with doubt but it has finally come together and I have been accepted to five schools.

Perhaps I should tell you all a little bit more about myself. I have always been fascinated with the law and have wanted to become a lawyer since middle school but for a short while, I was more interested in becoming a teacher. I spent the first few years of college pursuing an education degree. And then I learned about the human rights abuses in Africa and began pursuing a degree in French (the language most commonly spoken in sub-Saharan Africa). Eventually, I changed my major to political science. I graduated from college with my bachelor's degree in the summer of 2008, after what could easily be described at the most amazing semester internship ever. Maybe it was living in a big city or not having any financial obligations but that semester has set a bar for work that I have yet to find, though I have come close.  

After college, and unable to find the magical human rights job that should have been waiting for me, I took up jobs with a national bank chain and a local flea market. As I grew more frustrated with the job search, I decided to get my master's degree; why not, it would make me more desirable for a job right? It just so happened that shortly after classes started I landed a full-time job in a men's medium security prison. Not where I saw myself working in a million years but it was a job, a foot in the door with the state government, and it came with benefits (health insurance for $25 a month, heck ya, sure beats the $140 I was paying before). A little over a year later, I was promoted to a local women's prison as a caseworker and that is where I am now. The people I work with now remind my of my internship, in that I feel like they genuinely care. I don't believe you could find a greater group of people working in one spot. 

So, "the time has come, the walrus said." Knowing that I work with an amazing group of people is only half of what I am looking for in a career. The other half is doing what I am passionate about and believe to be great work. (Corrections is amazing work, every day people walk into an environment which is stressful, where anything could happen, and when the day is over, they come right back in the next day. It takes an amazingly strong person to do that for 20/25 years without getting the respect they deserve.) While I do believe I have somewhat of an impact on the people I work with, I believe becoming a lawyer will allow me to have a greater impact on the people around me. Which brings me to my new adventure.

Tomorrow, I leave for the northeast again, this time to check out two of the law schools in which I have been accepted. Saturday night we will stop in Buffalo, NY and eat some famous wings and go back to Niagara Falls. Sunday we will drive to Portland where, on Monday, I will tour the University of Maine School of Law. Tuesday we will head to Boston to check out Suffolk University and continue on to Philadelphia before coming back home on Wednesday. As I did with my last few adventures, I am bringing you along.

See you in Buffalo tomorrow!