After at least two dozen aborted attempts to update my blog over the past year, I return to the blogosphere, tail between legs, asking all (one or two) of you (variably devoted) followers for your humble forgiveness. I shall feed your news hungry brains anew.

The following minor events occurred:

• I got into UW Law, among others.
• I accepted a transfer to UW.
• I participated in journal write-on competitions at five different schools before I even knew whether I’d gotten into the school itself … all while still wrapping up the applications themselves AND studying for finals
• I quit my job at AT&T. It was one of the most gratifying moments of my life.
• I moved back to Seattle in nearly the most difficult way possible. I drove between San Francisco and Seattle 4 times in the span of a week, while packing all of my crap in between drives.
• Michael accompanied me for much of this ordeal, enduring searing 100+ degree heat on final moveout day, countless trips up and down 4 flights of stairs, and a recalcitrant U-Haul employee by the name Lloyd Harris Jr., who insisted that “he ain’t gonna do it … if you want those trailers moved you’re [sic] gonna have to do it yourself.” The last drive was 17 hours of continuous Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Tom Jones, and Ronnie James Motherf***ing Dio, finally ending at about 7am.
• I am unemployed and loving every moment that doesn’t involve school. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet found a moment that involves something other than school.
• UW is cool.
• Making new friends is tiring, and I’m not particularly good at it.
• I miss In-N-Out.
• 18 credits is too much for one quarter.
• 20 credits is way, way too much for one quarter.
• I’m going to Germany over spring break for an IP law seminar.
• Hank and Wayne are back to brewing, and we’re getting serious about it. Check us out at http://hankandwayne.com.
• And finally, I’ll be staying put in Seattle this summer, working as a judicial extern for Federal District Court Judge Pechman. Means I’m projected to graduate in March of next year!

I think that’s it for now.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in the past six months, it’s that home is where the heart is.  My heart never left Seattle.

I was up north for one my regular visits this past weekend.  There wasn’t a special occasion, nor were there any unusual circumstances about the visit, but something was different about this trip from the start.  I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t concentrate for a week prior.  When I arrived, the usual elation of being home was supplanted by a quiet wistfulness.  After literally weeks of being alone, I incongruously wanted to be left alone even though I was surrounded by family and close friends.  The first time someone asked me how long I was staying, I stared at them blankly.  It all came to me at once … after six months of being away, I finally grasped what that question meant.

“Visitng home,” to me, is a contradiction in terms.  If one visits somewhere, it means they’re going away from home.  Furthermore, if one goes home, he can’t claim to be visiting it.  For the past seven years, I’ve considered Seattle my home.  For the past six months, I haven’t been there for more than a few days at a time, but I always felt like I was going home after a long trip.  But on Saturday, I learned that Seattle was no longer my home, but instead a place I desired to be home.  

That desire may very well go unfulfilled for at least a couple of years.  I recently applied to transfer schools in hopes that I’d be able to come back, and by all measures, I’m almost assured an offer at the NW schools to which I applied.  But in a baby-with-bathwater moment, I also applied to Georgetown just to see if I could get in.  I reasoned that there wasn’t much of a chance that I’d get in, but, I thought, it sure would be nice to go if I did.

After looking more closely at the statistics and finally coming to terms with how much I missed home, I now wish I hadn’t applied.  I stand a decent chance of being accepted, and it would be extremely hard for me to turn down a chance to go to one of the preeminent law schools in the country … but still, the very thought just kills me.  

Actually, it might not be the thought of the decision that’s bothering me.  At this stage, it’s more the uncertainty around whether that decision is one I’ll have to make.  As I wait for the the fates to drop more pieces into place, I’m stuck here in limbo – working a job in an industry I despise, living in a town that collectively marches to a different beat than my own, and wondering whether I have to always put myself on the hardest possible path to happiness and success.

Well, at least Bush isn’t our president anymore.  Cheers to that.

Woo woo woo woo wooooooo! It finally hit me this morning – my first year of law school is half done. Time to get myself up north and rock the family, friends, powder, and the sweet sweet joy of not studying.

Not to mention the RAWWK itself. In a few short days, Los Tres Hermanos de Explosion will victoriously reunite for yet another raucously dissonant noisemaking (and beer-drinking) session. Michael’s neighbors can’t wait!

but one hell of a contract law final standing in my way. Thankfully, it’s my last of four, and I’m almost looking forward to it.

Not to eulogize prematurely, but being back in school has certainly been a shock to my system … in a good way. I feel like I’m making up for time I wasted and lost when I was in college, and actually applying myself toward school is providing a catharsis that I’m only experiencing for the first time.  My expectations of performance, while still high, are tempered somewhat by my full-time day job – a dubious responsibility that I share with less than a third of my 1L part-time class.  Most of the rest are kids just out of undergraduate who either didn’t want a full load to start their law school career, or were originally seeking the full-time program and got shuffled into the part-time program by admissions.  Among the older people looking for a wholesale career change, around half quit their job prior to matriculating.  As such, the competitive landscape is unusual, to say the least, and the forced grading curve is really screwing with my usually accurate spidey sense of how I actually did.

I did how I did (and will do as I will do), and think that my efforts were close to my maximum capability with what resources and intellect I can muster.  I have a lot of things driving me right now – my aspirations for the future, some amount of (perhaps misplaced) pride, my sense of duty to the world around me … but most importantly, my desire to rejoin the people and places I love in a better position to help and support them.

So to my family, friends, and the beautiful and wild Great Northwest – here’s to you, and to hoping for the best.  If I succeed, it will have been because of you. 

I will see you soon.