Oh, the Things I've Seen!

It's been an interesting few days. At state court, I've met my first meth addict, saw a guy try to convince entire court's staff that he could defend himself in a marijuana possession case, helped another guy NOT get his bond forfeited and watched my judge deliver a few choice words to an unprepared ADA for the first setting of a 2005 case. At the federal public defender's office, I've finally gotten my federal ID, watched a bank robber plead guilty after he ripped off a bank to pay off the furniture he bought for his apartment, visited the trailer that this article refers to, and met a "reformed" cocaine dealer. (That was in quotes for a reason, yes, but I'm not completely convinced he isn't reformed either. It was a short meeting.)

I've also been sitting around at both jobs watching my billionth DWI plea or reading my billionth case file about the latest drug dealer the DEA caught because the dealer was being (shock!) a moron. But, all in all, they're good jobs. Now only if I could get my parking pass for the courthouse...

Oh! And before I forget, let's have a little talk about MANNERS, shall we? You may or may not know me, but you should pretty much assume that everyone you meet is happy in their life. If you insult any major portion of that life, be prepared to be hated. Even if it's a suppressed, secret hatred. If you're incredibly rude to someone in the first few minutes of their acquaintance, you can bet that you've burned that bridge even before you had a blueprint. An illustration (yes, this happened to me yesterday):

Ann (the court coordinator): Oh, Defense Lawyer, have you met Sarah? She's the judge's intern for a few weeks.
Defense Lawyer: Hi! Nice to meet you. Are you a law student?
Me: Yeah, I just finished my first year.
DL: At SMU?
Me: No, Baylor.
DL: Ah, Baylor... where they teach you to pass the bar, but not how to be an attorney.
Me: *shocked, momentary stare* Um... well, we did have 100% pass rate on the February bar.
DL: *continuing to be happy and such, either trying to skate past his horrible insult 2 seconds after meeting me or being truly so stupid that he didn't realize that it was an insult* Yeah, I read about that!

I narrowly avoided asking him if he wanted to critique my appearance while he was at it. Obviously, the man had no boundaries.

Mini-Update

1. There was a judge wondering where I was. I am now in the correct place, although I'm doing about as little as I was before.

2. My parents aren't moving to Little Rock! I have nothing against Arkansas (probably because I've never been there) but I am so very, very pleased about this.

First Day of My Summer Job(s)

Instead of telling you exactly what happened today, I'm going to post my thoughts as I moved through the day. In the morning, I was at the Frank Crowley Court in Dallas for my internship with Judge King. In the afternoon, I was at the Federal Public Defender's Office.

7:00 am: "I woke up 2 hours before I'm supposed to be downtown. I'm going to be late."

8:45 am: "Yeah... definitely late. And damn it, I hate Industrial Boulevard. What is he DOING? God, that's creepy."

9:20 am: "I have no idea where I'm supposed to be. This is supposed to be a judicial internship, so where's the judge? Why is no one in the DA's workroom?"

9:25 am: "There are too many damn people in here!"

10:00 am: "I'm shocked anything ever gets done in this system. Where is that file? Why are the only ones I'm looking for the only ones that are missing? Is this really how plea agreements are done? This is absolute chaos."

11:00 am: "She is way too excited about having an intern. And why didn't she know I was coming in the first place? Am I even in the right place?"

11:50 am: "Really people, am I in the right place? Is there a judge wondering where her new intern is?"

12:05 pm: "Well, at least I have plenty of time to make it 2 blocks to my next job."

12:45 pm: "I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE TO PARK! I HATE DOWNTOWN!"

1:10 pm: "Well, at least my new boss is nice enough to lend me $3.50 for parking only minutes after meeting me because I only had $1.50 in cash."

2:30 pm: "Fingerprinting. Going on the list of messiest activities possible."

3:00 pm: "Fourth computer and it still doesn't work. Ah, government funding. At least it isn't DOS like the court house."

4:00 pm: "Awesome. Fraud and bribery. Oh! And public nudity!"

5:00 pm: "No brain work."

So it wasn't the best of first days. But I've had worse first days too. All in all, I think that the court internship will be a lot of busy work, but the sort of busy work that actually helps the DAs, which is nice. And I'm going to be helping the public defender's office do research and draft motions and suchlike, so that'll be nice too. Everyone was nice (even though none of the DAs in the morning knew who I was - I also got approached by several defense lawyers to sign off on plea agreements). It was exhausting, but by the end of the week, I'll be used to working again. How quickly I lose tolerance for 8 hour days!

For Music Geeks

My friend - a cellist - sent me this. As a violinist, I laugh at cellists' plight with Pachelbel. What can I say? I'm a mean person, even in the classical music world. Anyway, it's a clever bit and amusing, even for those that can't sing Pachelbel in their sleep.