Summer, Month I

It's been about a month since spring semester ended. After that, I spent a few days visiting my best friends in DC. Then I went on vacation for a couple weeks...I spent a lot of time at the beach. Even though it was the rainy season, there was a good dose of nice weather that gave me ample opportunity to lounge around and finish a book I've been reading and to review a few "you ought to read this article as a part of our ongoing research" assignments from the professor I'm RAing for this summer. I also drank a lot of really cheap beer and saw some beautiful waters and fish just off the coast. Overall, it was a really relaxing vacation, and a great glimpse into another country's culture.

Last week, I spent a few more days in DC (and got to hang out with Cat!) before shipping off for my summer job. I'm working for a mid-size non-profit. I've just finished my first week, and I really couldn't be happier. My supervisors are really great; I get to work very closely with the general counsel and associate general counsel every day. The perks are fantastic: I have employer-provided housing, subsidized meals, a nice gym, free espresso drinks all day, and even my own bike to get around town. Since there are only about a dozen interns here, the HR department and out supervisors have coordinated lots of cool outings for us. My co-interns are all really interesting, and since most of us aren't from the area, we've been exploring the city together.

My work, too, is turning out better than expected. While I'm not sure I was quite prepared to be spending 70-80% of my day working on contracts and agreements (and I'm probably not qualified to do so, given my lackluster attendance in Contracts last fall), I've found the work to be diverse and interesting. I've been dabbling in employment law, trademark law, federal grant regulations, internet content licensing, and banking agreements....and that's just in my first week! I'm looking forward to the rest of the summer and building some level of competency in a few areas of law. Since lots of my work will probably be related to drafting and reviewing contracts, I'll have to be careful to make sure I get the chance to do some longer writing assignments,too - I'll almost certainly need a writing sample to submit to potential 2L summer employers when they come to on-campus interviewing this August, and I'm not particularly happy with any of my written assignments from 1L.

Speaking of OCI, I'm really glad to report that my last spring semester grade was posted last week. YLS professors are notorious for taking FOREVER to grade exams and papers, so I was delightfully surprised to find that all of mine were finished within a month. Even though I'm not stressing much about grades (our system pretty much prevents it, and I'm not gunning for a SCOTUS clerkship or a spot at Wachtell), I'm still happy with how things wrapped up.

One of my other favorite things about this job: having evenings and weekends free to just explore the city, be outside, and relax. I really need to buckle down and finish the next stage of my research for my professor, but he's been pretty lax about deadlines, so I haven't exactly been proceeding at breakneck pace....and may have spent the last four hours watching "LockUp" on MSNBC with my roommates....

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