Three Month Update

Once again it has been weeks and months since the last time I posted. Opportunities to write are so rare these days. Nevertheless, I'm sitting down on this cloudy Sunday morning to update the Internet on my life.

First, I was admitted to the MBA program at University of Memphis recently. It will be an online degree, giving me time to work full-time and maintain somewhat of an extracurricular life (I hope). I was completely undecided about which degree to pursue - an MBA or Communications - so I originally applied to both. Apparently the Graduate School here does not allow you to apply to two programs, so when I found out that my MBA application had not gone through, I realized that it was the degree I actually want. So here I sit today on the brink of a new learning adventure ripe with possibilities and knowledge.

The boyfriend and I moved out of our ritzy downtown apartment to a more sensible place in midtown. I never understood all the car decals and other signs I used to see that said "Midtown IS Memphis," but now I do. I thought downtown was edgier, truer to the gritty, grindy Memphis we've all heard about. But as it turns out, downtown is rich and pretty safe. Midtown has edginess. We have had something stolen from one of our vehicles and found someone digging in our trash, all within two weeks of moving in. And we live on a good street.

Even with all that, Memphis is infectious. It has personality. It has swagger. Memphis is strong and proud and undeniably blue collar. Down to earth. Possibly too down to earth. It is heart and soul and blues, even in 2011.

Which brings me to my next topic: the Memphis Grizzlies. We went in with some friends on season tickets this year and went to fifteen home games of the Grizzlies. Before this season I did not watch sports. Somewhere during the season I became a Grizzlies fan, then a basketball fan, and finally a Memphis-the-city-itself fan. It is amazing what a winning team in the national spotlight can do to a city.

Finally, I am still with the firm I moved here to work for. At times I have questioned whether I fit in there, with my insatiable desire for CLEs and substantive work. But the attorneys and staff I work with have kept me going. I have continued, and will continue, to softly and slowly push my way upstream because that it just who I am. I will tell anyone who will listen that I and the other paralegals can do substantive work. Because my worry is not that we are not given substantive work, but rather that some of the attorneys do not know that they could give us such work. I would rather my attorney know he could use me on a project and choose not to for his own reasons than not know I could be used and continue to work inefficiently for no reason.

Because when it comes down to it, I feel that the paralegal's truest purpose is efficiency. We are here to save attorneys time and clients money. Little by little, I see various attorneys at my office thinking in those terms. And I like it.

So this is my all-too-short recap of the last few months. I hope you've enjoyed it, and I expect there is more to come.