“When the dust gets thick on the back window of his Mini Cooper, Scott Wade uses it as a canvas to create temporary works of art.” Amazing! ââ�¡â��

Big news: I am employed!!

Remember my agonizing from just a couple of weeks ago? You know, when I thought there was no way I was going to get the job I wanted? Turns out it was all for nothing. I got the call late last week to set up the interview, interviewed earlier this week, and got the offer later the same day. I am now a Montana Public Defender!

It all happened so quickly I almost couldn’t believe it. I’ve been dreaming about this job since I learned of the Montana Public Defender Act last October, and I gambled big on the fact that I would get it. Then, just like that, I’m hired. Is it any wonder I still find it hard to believe?

The day I got back to Missoula for Bar/Bri classes Professor Paula Franzese was giving her last lecture on property and she told this joke about these two twins. One was very pessimistic and cynical, the other was hopelessly optimistic. The twins’ father wanted to try to balance them out, so for Christmas he shut them in their rooms with their presents. The father filled the pessimist’s room with wonderful toys and gadgets and all good things, and he filled the optimist’s room with horse manure. After a while he went to check on them. The pessimist was standing in his room, arms folded in defiance: “You can’t fool me, dad. I know life is never really like this.” (Or something like that.) The father found the optimist busy in his room full of manure, whistling a happy tune as he carefully put the manure into tidy piles. The father couldn’t believe it and asked his optimist, “Son, how can you remain so happy among all this crap?” And the optimist answered, “Well, with all this crap, there must be ponies coming!”

Franzese’s point was that studying for the bar is a bunch of crap, but she promised that there are ponies to come. Now that I have a jobââ�¬â��and not just a job, but the job I really wanted, the one I gambled everything onââ�¬â��I know she’s right. There are ponies, people. There are definitely ponies. Now about all this crap in my room…. [tags]good news, billings, job search, montana[/tags]

Hi. I’ve been playing hooky from the blog while focusing on other thingsââ�¬â��like sanding floors! But also, of course, I’ve been studying for the bar. A little. I need to do more, obviously. Which brings me to the point of this post, which is: Should I do the PMBR 3-day review next weekend or not?

I’ve asked this before and got lots of good feedback in these two posts from March and early April. The clear consensus from those who responded there was that PMBR just freaks you out and what you really need to do is just do practice questions practice questions practice questions. I think that’s right, but then I see all these people in my BarBri class signing up for this PMBR “crash course” next weekend and I think, “do they know something I don’t?”

See, Sua Sponte felt the same pressure at almost the same point last summer.

Baaaaa! Baaaaa!

I’m not gonna do it. You can’t make me!

p.s.: Speaking of last chances, today is also your last chance to lock in a lower interest rate on your federal loans by consolidating them. Yay.

(Sheep image courtesy of unadorned.org via a Creative Commons license.) [tags]pmbr, barbri, debt[/tags]

“In a finding that will have office managers everywhere scurrying for the photocopier, researchers have discovered that merely a picture of watching eyes nearly trebled the amount of money put in the box.” ââ�¡â��

“Whether the issue is racial or economic justice, the over-use of imprisonment, the over-use of criminal laws generally, problematic use of discretion, or the poor quality of counsel (and, in the case of juveniles, the actual absence of counsel in many cases), capital punishment issues are only the tip of the public-policy-problem iceberg.” ââ�¡â��

“These are the debts assumed by newborns for the years indicated. Of course, as you grow older, your debt may increase. Depending on who holds public office.” ââ�¡â�� [via]

“This time we take a look at the estate tax, at ever more expensive college educations, at minute-by-minute spending on the war in Iraq, at the hefty bankrolls of some elected officials, at the sad state of gas prices, and – of course – at American Idol.” ââ�¡â��

“The liaison program, which is modeled after one in Lethbridge, Alberta, “is unique in America,” Slaughter said.” This joins Montana’s public defender system as a first-in-nation step in the right direction in the area of criminal justice.

“Six police officers may lose their jobs for pawning their guns in the southern Philippines, where underfunded and poorly paid security forces are fighting Muslim and communist insurgencies.” ââ�¡â��

“Procrastination is typically caused by the association of pain or discomfort with the prospective course of action; that is: stress.” ââ�¡â��