About a month ago I said I was done with this blog. I said it was too much to have on my plate alongside all of my client work and class work… but I’m back for two reasons:
- Someone recently said that I tend to give up on things when things get hard… Challenge accepted to change that
- I recently read a book that said if you are passionate about something you treat it like a wild affair, you dress up and make time for it… what’s sexier than a writing affair?
Before I left for law school a friend told me to never forget my first true passion: writing. I smiled and said I wouldn’t, but it’s easy to forget passions that aren’t directly tied to the law when in law school. Sure we write a lot in law school, but for the most part its dry, mechanic writing, with very few chances to write those long, verbose, passionate, and illustrative paragraphs that creative writing allows for.
I woke up this morning longing for the creative writing that I’ve been putting on hold for so long. I laid on my couch trying to push away the thoughts of deadlines, memos, legal questions, and all of the other chores the weekend was beckoning me to start. I laid on the couch trying to push away the excuses that were building, asking me to not sit down and write. I laid on the couch trying to push through the fears of failure, perfectionism, regret, and insecurities that forced me to stay put and not get up and write. It’s funny how the universe speaks to us. How the universe quietly whispers that we should push ourselves to be our best selves, our most true selves while the world yells at us to be something different, to be better, to keep reaching because we will never be enough.
It’s up to us to choose what voice to listen to… the small whisper or the loud yelling. SO here I sit, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire sitting next to me, a triple vent salted caramel mocha (a free one!! yay!!) and my computer. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying to jump back into this writing. But here we go…
First things first… we are shaking things up a bit because one reason I wanted to quit was the vastness of this project. Taking on all 7 books, every chapter its own blog started to feel overwhelming and impossible. There just weren’t enough weeks before graduation to make every chapter its own blog. So instead… for the rest of Book 4 I will be combining chapters 14-37 into six sections, each section four chapters. So as you see in the title of this blog we are covering four chapters, chapters 14-17. I will still give a brief synopsis of the main events happening in the chapters and pick a central theme which this week is “The unforgivable curses of law school.” So shall we dive right in??
Chapter 14- The Unforgivable Curses
You might remember this scene in movie four. Moody teaches his Defense Against the Dark Arts class the unforgivable curses (the Cruciatus curse, the Imperious curse, and the killing curse). Ron names the first curse, Neville the second, and Hermione the third. What you didn’t see in the movie was Hermione’s continuing quest to help house elves through the creation of S.P.E.W. (Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare), Ron and Harry faking their divination predictions, or Sirius’s letter to Harry saying he was heading back north because of Harry’s scar hurting. (Also in the movie I’m pretty sure this all happens after the next chapter… lol movie magic.)
Chapter 15- Beauxbatons and Durmstrang
In this chapter, Sirius arrives back in the country (hidden of course). Beauxbatons, a french school (of BOTH girls and BOYS, unlike the movie) and Durmstrang, a school who doesn’t want anyone to know where its located arrives! Of course that means Viktor Krum, Bulgarian Quidditch star also arrives. All of the Hogwarts students are of course still in awe… and Hermione is still trying to get people to buy her S.P.E.W. badges to help her cause, but no one is biting.
Chapter 16- The Goblet of Fire
A feast occurs, because this is Hogwarts and why wouldn’t there be a magical feast, oh and its Halloween so of course that means a feast and not candy… what the hell are we doing in America?!? Of course the rules of the Goblet of Fire and Triwizard Tournament are announced, everyone boos because you have to 17… the twins try to figure out a way around the rules, hermione tells them they are ridiculous, people speculate at who is putting their name and who will be the champions. Eventually the night comes to announce the winners…. you have Fleur from Beaxbatons, Krum from Durmstrang, Diggory from Hogwarts… and SURPRISE, SURPRISE Harry Mother’effen Potter.
Chapter 17- The Four Champions
OMG everyone is in shock… how dare Harry put his name in the Goblet and how dare the Goblet name four champions? Clearly nothing bad or weird has occurred here… this is normal. Oh and its a magical contract… interesting the way wizarding laws work. Anyways from this chapter the masterful Old Dumbledore vs. New Dumbledore casting crisis of the movie is born from the line “Did ya put your name in the Goblet of Fire?” My good old friend Hank loves to use this line as evidence that the old Dumbledore was far superior to the new Dumbledore. Anyways everyone is upset and Ron starts acting like a jealous twit… end of the chapter.
So how does this theme of the “unforgivable curses of law school” track throughout these four chapters? Well the unforgivable curses are insecurities, jealousy, and pride. Think of them this way: Cruciatus (the pain inducing curse)= insecurities, Imperius (being controlled by someone else curse)= jealousy, and the killing curse (AVADA KEDAVRA)= pride. Let’s see, Ron is insecure, jealous, and prideful throughout all of these chapters. Durmstrang as a whole is sickeningly prideful. Hermione is prideful. Harry is insecure. Each character is struggle with some sort of harmful curse… as does every law student.
It’s like the second you walk into the law school you are hit with one of these curses (if not all three). I remember first year I felt so insecure. I wanted to make friends so bad (and if you know me at all most people do not like me at first and call me “mean” or “bitchy”) and I tried so hard. I cannon balled into friend groups as if they were nice warm swimming pools, and sure enough those people in the pool did not like being splashed and left the pool. I started to wear my insecurities on my chest like a brazened red A of shame. I felt alone, hurting on my own, longing to go home and quit this whole law school mess.
After first semester it got worst because grades came out and I unfortunately did not make the cut. So add jealousy to the mix. I started doing whatever I could to mirror the successful people in my section… which led to more issues and more people being like “ohhh awkward, not helping you, goodbye.” Law school is hard, and even worse when you realize you may not have much to offer to the people you want to be friends with and law school is not a team sport no matter how much we want it to be. So I started to get frustrated and started to act in accordance with the social norms of law school… I repeat, law school is not a team sport, everyone is on their own. (Don’t believe me, ask my old roommate who explicitly told me we had to do things on our own when we just the night before talked about running for student government together and then she went rogue making her own flyers that night without me. Law school is not a team sport, and even more so for those who are the weaker links.)
So, first semester sucked, reality of poor grades made second semester worse… then the summer happened, my GPA rose and so did my pride. I entered into the second year, a little less likely to put up with people’s shit, still insecure, thinking I was independent, alone and didn’t need anyone telling me otherwise… the thing is, the universe doesn’t put up with that crap. The universe will be the first one to knock you down… hence why pride is the killing curse, because if you become prideful, the universe will knock it out of you. So here I sit, trying to figure out what to do next.
Law school brings out the nasty in people, the drive, the jealousy, the pride, the insecurities, the bitchy side and so much more. But we get through it, we get through law school and out into the world and we do what we were meant to do… the key is to not let these curses define you, but make you better. Pick the small whispering voice you want to listen to and listen closely. Don’t let law school define you, don’t let you hang-ups define you, and always choose New Dumbledore over Old Dumbledore… there’s no way Old Dumbledore could have kicked as much ass as the New one does in the 6th movie.
Until Next Time,
Mischief Managed.
It’s hard to see what you are destined for from the perspective of where we are seated. When you are in the midst of the mess, the hard work, the emotions, the world which tells you to conform, when you are in the midst of all of that it’s hard to see the big picture. We are all destined to do something in this world. Some of us are meant for the traditional paths of the world, meant to make an impact where we are. Some are meant to revolutionize the whole world to bring together the masses. Some are meant to make small ripples in the world through untraditional paths.
I love this interaction between Hermione and her friends. Hermione’s friends all try to talk her out of being so “dramatic.” When Hermione starts to really stand-up for something she believes is a problem, but to most people is just a normality of wizard life, she pushes back.
“Ohhh look what you made me do.” Taylor Swift’s new album, Reputation, comes out in a little over a month, and man I CANNOT WAIT! It’s going to be great. Taylor Swift’s concept for this new album is taking her “ruined” reputation back into her own hands. There’s nothing better than seeing someone stand up for themselves in life, even though we still don’t have control over who lives, who dies and who tells our story. But it made me start to think a little deeper about reputations and law school.
Faculty and staff always preach reputation at the law school. Your professional identity, the small Denver community, being nice to your peers… the lectures go on and on. While they mean well, and of course they do, I think there is something to be said about reputations. To me, reputations are simple perceptions about people usually made through the lens of your own insecurities added to half-truths about the actual person. Take Draco Malfoy for example. He has a reputation for being a brat, a snotty, rich brat. Most people dislike Draco terribly. His reputation does nothing but hurt him, over and over and over again, until you get to the end of the series. Draco puts up a front, he elaborates on his stories, he lives a half-truth filled life, attempting to make things seem better or make himself seem more important so he doesn’t have to face the real him inside.
I have an Bachelor’s of Arts in English. I wonderful degree that everyone said would be very useful in law school. It is actually useful for knowing basic sentence structure, knowing basic words, and knowing basic punctuation. When a professor returned my first writing assignment in a class, I. WAS. DEVASTATED. It was torn apart. There were so many marks on it I could barely see through them. I was embarrassed to have a degree in English. See 1Ls go through this and some do not, but it’s a good lesson if you do go through this. You see, I could have all the punctuation right, the ideas correct, and the format down, but without the proper word choice, my papers would never be good enough. And that’s what this week’s theme is: choosing the right words.
This semester I am taking Legal Professions, an ethics course required by the school. It’s an interesting class, full of the dos and the don’ts of the legal profession. Being in a clinic too, I get real clients to apply these rules to while still in school. Loyalty to the client is one of the most important things we’ve learned thus far. This can come in so many forms: confidentiality, competency, diligence, and ensuring there are no conflicts with other clients. Loyalty is a huge part of the legal profession. You want to be loyal to your clients so they feel comfortable giving you information so you can advocate for them in the best ways.
It’s funny what the breaking of loyalty can do. In the legal world it can create so many problems for a lawyer. From losing the client’s trust, to being disciplined for Professional Rules of Conduct violations, to even being disbarred. Everything we do as lawyers is looked at from a loyalty standpoint. We are forever responsible of making sure our actions are not adverse to our past clients and present clients needs. We must keep confidentiality at all times (unless under the enumerated exceptions found in the rules) and must work diligently on all client matters.
Game Day is here for two of the wizarding world’s best quidditch teams as they face off in the Quidditch World Cup! Harry watches in awe as these two teams go head to head in a competition. Harry watches Krum, the epitome of a seeker, perform a perfect fake out, injuring the Irish seeker, his antagonist in the game. The gang also has an encounter with Barty Crouch’s eccentric house elf, Winky, in the stands (someone who becomes important in the next chapter). The match ends with Krum catching the snitch, but overall losing the game. The crowd turns on Krum with great animosity. Harry and the gang gets a chance to meet all of the players at the endow the game and then heads back to their tent.
In this chapter, the gang has all arrived at the Quidditch World Cup Finals campgrounds. Harry is in awe of the mix of people he runs into as Ron, Hermione and Harry walk around. They see people from school and their families while also seeing key individuals who work at the Ministry of Magic. Getting water takes forever as they stop to make small talk with people throughout the area. On their way to the actual game, they run into two key people Ludo Bagman (who is the director of this event and commentator for the game) and Barty Crouch, Percy’s boss at the Ministry. Percy reacts to seeing his boss in the most Percy way. Percy “idolizes him.” As for everyone meeting Bagman who is wearing a jersey a few sixes too small, the Twins jump in on a bet with Bagman regarding the game.
Networking at large events for me is painful. It can cause panic attacks. I can come off impolite and insincere. Now, sit down over coffee, one-on-one with me, invest actual time and I’m there, fully engaged, only slightly nervous. Now don’t get me wrong, at most large events I can make myself network, I just hate the way it feels.
Obsessing over the work you have to do, having nothing else but work to fuel you can lead to some major issues in your career and life. This past summer there was a 
Having old friends come to a new town that you’ve made your new home can be sort of scary at first. Then add the layer of law school and never leaving the university area, it can be a little sad realizing you haven’t explored much of your new city. One of the most interesting parts of the nights though was seeing my old friends connect with new friends by chance on the street. Having my old friends, Ben and Paige, my true friends, around made what would have now been an extremely awkward chance meeting with this friend on the street on a Friday night downtown a funny coincidence. Paige and Ben made it fun, Ben asked anyone he met that I knew all about their law school journey and future while Paige tried to get everyone to go dancing with her.
The thing is, having old friends in my new city has been amazing. It’s been one of those experiences where you remember who you are. You no longer fret about whether the people like you in this new place but remember you have friends and family all over the world who love and adore you, who care about your well-being and not your grade point average or class rank. There are people in my life who want me around and don’t want me to have to initiate every hangout. There are people in my life that others don’t see.
The Wizarding World of Law School 