A Lenten Commit-meat

Happy Mardi Gras, faithful readers!

Enveloped in a busy couple of months of setting up my new apartment, fervent grant writing, and dutiful studying for the bar exam, I confess I have neglected my dear blog.  So, I thought I'd stop in and offer a few reflections as I prepare for this season of Lent.

This year, I have decided to give up meat.  The last time I gave up meat for Lent was my freshman year of college.  It was a significant experience for me on a number of levels.  Spiritually, I had a reminder multiple times per day of my dependence on God.  Personally, I learned a lot about nutrition and how to make healthy choices for myself.  Deliciously, I discovered hummus.

After going 40 days without meat, I didn't feel a particular desire to become a vegetarian, but it did challenge my childhood conditioning that a meal has to be centered around meat.  To this day, I don't eat very much meat--probably most often when I go out to eat, or am home with my family.

An additional inspiration for giving up meat this year is my boyfriend, Alan, who is a vegetarian.  (Hi, Alan!)  We've been sharing a lot of meals, even cooking some together, so it will dovetail nicely, providing me with some extra encouragement.

I will also be taking on some spiritual practices during Lent.  I plan on praying the Rosary each evening, because my prayer life has been a little lackluster lately.  I also want to read at least one of the Catholic books sitting on my shelf--possibly The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by Fr. James Martin.  You might recognize the name if you're a regular viewer of The Colbert Report, as Fr. Jim is the chaplain of the Colbert nation.  Indeed, he was on the program just last night, discussing the resignation of the Pope:

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What are you giving up for Lent?

So, So Close

How close was I was to passing the July 2012 California Bar Exam?

"Your answers were all read twice, your averaged total scaled score was below 1440, and at least one of your answers had a discrepancy greater than 10 raw points between the first and second read grades assigned.  Any answer with a significant discrepancy was referred to a member of the Examination Development and Grading Team for a third reading in order to resolve the discrepancy."

They had to grade one of my performance tests three times.  That's how close I was.  The third grader decided to give me a 55, despite the fact that the second grader had given me a 70.  (62.5 is considered a passing score.)  When you receive your score, you are given the formulas for scaled scoring.  Playing with the numbers, I learned that if I had received a 63 or higher on that one PT instead of a 55, I would have passed the exam.

That's how close I was to passing.  Three graders quibbling over one question.

And so, I find myself enrolled in yet another bar review course, preparing for my fourth time taking the exam.

I'll be honest with you: it is very tempting to feel discouraged and cheated by this news.  I thought I was impossibly close to passing last time, but that was nothing compared with the prodigious frustration of knowing that one grader gave you more points than you needed to pass, only to have that score dismissed by a subsequent grader.

And yet, I must keep things in perspective.  If the absolute worst thing going on in my life is that I came very close to passing the most difficult exam of my career, then I've got a pretty good life.  I am seven months into an incredible job where I get paid to end homelessness.  I just moved into my very own apartment in San Francisco, one of the most charming and fascinating cities on this planet.  I have a fluffy cat who is equal parts adorable and mischievous.  I have an incredibly loving and supportive family, and am surrounded by friends who provide me with laughter, encouragement, and baked goods.

So, yes, I am taking the bar exam for the fourth time.  A year ago, I would have been humiliated to share that information with anyone, fearful of judgment.  But, I've grown a lot since then, and I've learned that my friends, family, and colleagues value me based on my character, not on my score.  Thank you all so much for supporting me throughout these past three attempts.

February 26-28, here we come.

Riding the Rails

Feeling nostalgic on my last day commuting from Sunnyvale before I move to SF. My daily commute has been extreme: a two-mile bike ride to the Sunnyvale Caltrain station, then a train ride from Sunnyvale to San Francisco that can take anywhere from 45 to 76 minutes (assuming no delays), and then a mile-long walk to work. All told, I have been spending 3.5 to 4 hours per day commuting.

In the past six months, I have traveled 9,801 miles by train, 484 miles by bike, and 242 miles by foot.

But, it hasn't been all bad. I have loved having a bike ride built into my day. The train is perfect for reading, and way more relaxing than driving to SF. I enjoy that I've become a regular at the Bean Scene, my favorite cafe in downtown Sunnyvale.

All the same, I am looking forward to my new roundtrip commute of 0.4 miles!

Apartment FTW!

I finally found an apartment in San Francisco!

For over two months, I have been compulsively checking Craigslist for new apartment postings.  I even had an RSS feed in Google Reader.  As I learned after my first couple of weeks of hunting, you have to respond extremely quickly to get a place.  If you don't show up to the open house with all of your paperwork filled out, you don't stand a chance.

Nine weeks and 30 apartments later, I had truly honed my apartment hunting skills.  Open houses are for fools, having to compete with so many other people.  So, when I saw a posting on Wednesday for an open house at 10 am on Thursday for a cute little studio with bay windows and hardwood floors two blocks from work, I immediately emailed the broker--Pam the Rental Gal--to see if we could schedule something for 9:30.  She was available!  I got her to send me a copy of the application form, and filled it out completely, putting together a packet with a cover letter, the application form, some supplemental applicant information, my resume, and my most recent pay stub.  I didn't include my credit report because they wanted to run the report themselves.

I met Pam Thursday morning, walking those two gloriously short blocks from work at Powell and Market to the apartment on Mason at Eddy.  The building is tall and narrow--eight floors, but only four units per floor.  The neighborhood is full of hotels, hostels, restaurants, shopping, and tourists, because it's so close to the cable cars and Union Square.  I felt perfectly safe walking there, which is more than I can say for some of the apartments I viewed in the Tenderloin, or even lower Nob Hill.

Pam and I took the elevator up to the fifth floor to check out the apartment.  Here are the photos from the Craigslist ad to give you an idea of what I saw.  This is the main space of the studio, with those gorgeous bay windows for which I hadn't been daring to hope:

Here's the other side of the room, looking at the big closet:

You can see the hallway and the front door, and those black stripes are in the tiny, tiny kitchen:

There are about six inches of counter space next to the sink.  I'm going to have to put in some sort of pantry organizer rack so I have somewhere to store food, a microwave and a toaster, I think.  You might be wondering, where's the fridge?  Well, they creatively installed it in the hallway, with the back of the fridge capitalizing on a bit of dead space in the far right corner of the closet:

The bathroom is through that door to the left:

So, after inspecting the apartment, I turned in my application to Pam, who quite literally squealed in delight at how organized I was.  She told me that she was doing the open house at 10, but assuming that my credit and eviction reports looked good, she'd give me a call that afternoon to offer me the place!

It was very difficult to focus on work on Thursday, waiting for Pam to call.  But, call she did, offering me the apartment, and telling me that I was lucky that I turned in my application first, because two other people handed in applications at the open house.  My cunning strategy had paid off!  I signed the lease electronically that afternoon, turned in a cashier's check Friday morning, and by 10:30 am on Friday had the key to my new apartment in hand.

It was a rather whirlwind experience, to search for an apartment for so long, preparing myself to make so many compromises on location and features, only to get an apartment fewer than 48 hours after first seeing the post on Craigslist.  Now, I'm packing, and plan to hire my brother and one of his friends to help me move next weekend.  I'm so glad to get Veterans Day off to start setting things up!  I need a number of things for my apartment, but I'm not going to rush to buy them all at once.  Rather, I'm going to take some time to start living in that space, and think creatively about the best ways to take advantage of my small space.  For instance, my biggest debate right now is whether I want to loft my full-size bed to free up more floor space.

I am so excited for this new chapter in my life.  As much as starting my new job has been a major turning point, I think that finding this apartment signifies officially becoming an independent adult.  It is a wonderful feeling, and I am definitely counting my blessings.

Let's Catch Up

Hey gang, I've been on a blogging hiatus for a while!  So many things have happened in the past four months:

I became a full-time, permanent staff lawyer at HomeBase.

I took the CA bar exam, and it felt good.  (Results coming in mid-November.)

I went to Yosemite for Siobhan & Sean's beautiful wedding.

I went to St. Paul for work, and went to the Minnesota State Fair with Molly.

I saw Jim Gaffigan do stand-up at the Mountain Winery for my birthday.

I went to Lake Tahoe to celebrate Morgan's birthday.

I began my San Francisco apartment hunt, which is ongoing.

I went to Seattle to visit Jaki and David (and ran into Saleema).

I went to the Big Game with my dad, and we had fun even though Cal lost.

I could spend an entire post on any of these events, but I think this will have to do.  I'm hoping to be more frequent in my posts in the future!

Phoenix

Last week, I took my first business trip.  I was a last-minute add to the trip.  I was working with two colleagues to prepare for some meetings in Phoenix, and they said, "You know, it would be easier if you would just come with us...  Let's look up some flights!"  And so, I found myself in Phoenix on Tuesday and Wednesday last week.

The intensity of the hot weather in Phoenix cannot be overstated.  It was 108° when I was in town, which is extreme.  As I exited the airport for the first time, I was shocked to learn that even one's eyeballs can feel hot.  And yet, it was freezing in all of the buildings with air conditioners blasting, so my Bay Area instinct to dress in layers nonetheless proved useful.

We stayed at the Hotel Valley Ho, which is a historic hotel in Scottsdale.  The architecture was designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, and it has an awesome "Jetsons-in-the-desert" feel--that very 1950s concept of the future, mixed with Arizonan elements.

Our meetings went well.  Having spent a lot of time preparing the materials for the meetings, it was great to see our work in action, and meet a lot of our clients.  I should be heading back to Phoenix in early August for another set of meetings--hopefully I'll be able to spend a little more time there and explore the city.

Settling In

I've been at HomeBase for six weeks now, and it's been awesome.  Having been an intern, it was easy for me to jump right into the work and start taking on responsibility.  It's a bit frustrating to have to study for the bar exam while gearing up in my new job, because I'd love to be able to pour 100% of my energy into work.  But, in another six weeks, the bar exam will be over, and things will really start to fall into place.

The nature of my work is very fast-paced and eclectic, which I love.  In a single day, I might research pending legislation, draft a grant proposal, write a memo on some best practices, or facilitate a meeting with clients to brainstorm how to improve their system.

While most of our work is in the Bay Area, we also have some national technical assistance work for HUD, which takes us all over the country.  Indeed, I will be going to Phoenix for a couple of days next week for some meetings. I am excited by how quickly I've begun to feel like a valuable team member with things to contribute.

Last week, I gave a presentation at our regional steering committee on Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.  It felt a bit like a "fake it 'til you make it" moment, because I'm by no means an expert on heath care reform, but I think it went well.  I, like most folks in the policy world, am awaiting the Supreme Court's opinion on the ACA with baited breath.  My hope is that they'll leave the entire law in effect, but my prediction is that they'll sever the individual mandate.

Today was lovely, because it was the annual intern hike, which is like our version of a company picnic.  We all carpooled out to the Marin Headlands for some hiking, followed by a BBQ picnic near the beach.  What a fantastic way to spend a Wednesday.