I Didn’t Have to Put Any Thought Into My End of Decade Wrap-Up Because the California Bar Forces You to Do that Anyway

I unabashedly stole this from the Edgy Memes for T14s page, but Above the Law does it all the time so it’s probably ok.

In case you were wondering, there is some debate over when a decade begins–is it at 0 or 1? People who can count may say it’s at 1, since 1-10 is ten years (2020 being the last year of the decade beginning with 2011). But other people think that’s dumb, because it does not make any sense to begin a decade with “1” when you have a perfectly good whole round number to begin with. This is further complicated by the fact that the year 0 does not exist in the Gregorian calendar.

Anyway, regardless of what the calendar, everyone seems to be posting 10 year wrap-ups on Facebook (ok, they posted them like a week and a half ago, but as mentioned before, this blog is not super into timeliness, and also, it takes somewhat longer to write a couple hundred words than five treacly sentences about how excited you are about that dude you met two years ago).

My past ten years involved . . . moving a lot? I was forced to reminisce about my residential history because, besides passing an ethics test, to apply for admission to the California Bar, you need to fill out a rather extensive “character and fitness” application. This involves everywhere you’ve ever lived in the past 8 years, every job you’ve every held since you were 18, and woe betide you if you’ve ever been sued, committed some certain degree of traffic violation, or are in debt, because that involves a whole other set of questions.

Because this was the first (and sadly, last) law school winter break where I didn’t have a bunch of stuff to do, I decided to be moderately productive and fill out my California bar application, which, fittingly for a law-related endeavor, cost over $500 and was much more convoluted and tedious than it first appeared. I also succeeded in my goal of watching a bunch of Netflix, eating a lot, and submitting my shipwrecks paper to exactly one journal. I told myself I was going to submit the thing to multiple journals, but I was stymied by having to write a CV. Wtf is a CV, and how is it different from a resume?? I have minimal accomplishments to put on a CV.

The thing that really tripped me up for my bar application (the most impressive accomplishment of Winter Break 2019, although I did manage to eat an astonishing amount of food) was furnishing my residential history. I went to a weird college, which involved moving a lot. Luckily, I never delete my email, so was able to search in my inbox and figure out that I lived on Cours Vitton in Lyon, France, for three months in 2012. Where was I in July  2013? Why, melting doing fieldwork on the Chesapeake Bay and getting attacked by catfish, which are, in fact, poisonous. The summer of 2013 is also memorable because that was when I decided to not become a scientist, a subject that became the topic of my law school application essays. I lived on Contees Wharf Road, for any bar examiners out there.

I would love to say this decade was topped off by some life-changing, crowning achievements. I whittled down my earthly possessions. I got fat. My hangovers got exponentially worse. I decided that California is the best state ever, and I will never, god willing, never live anywhere that it snows ever again. I figured out that I was good at writing snarky newspaper columns/blog posts, but really, we all knew that anyway. I will (hopefully!) get an advanced degree, which  we also kinda all knew was going to happen anyway. Game of Thrones started and ended. Star Wars (Part II? Part III?? I guess it depends on how you feel about the prequels) ended. I learned about the Rule Against Perpetuities (still my favorite law school rule, because it sounds scary and esoteric and you can say it really fast and no one knows what you’re talking about). I got really into podcasts. I acquired many strong feelings about the rule against hearsay, which, unlike the Rule Against Perpetuities, does not sound cool when you say it really fast. I cultivated my impeccable taste in interior design. I still have my cast iron skillet, which is one of my wiser purchases. The whereabouts of my first houseplant are unknown, but I suspect my dear Alocasia micholitziana has ascended to the great flowerpot in the sky.

What will the next 10 years hold? In 2030, I will be super old. The title of this blog will have to be modified (which ack, may have to happen in the next 2ish years). Perhaps I will have succeeded in my long-time goal of owning a dishwasher. Those cast-iron skillets don’t clean themselves. But you really shouldn’t be putting those in the dishwasher anyway.