Life in General…

It has been soo long since I’ve posted anything. I’m not sure why to be honest. Besides the fact that school and work take up so much of my time. I know it will all be worth it in the end, but what a long journey. I suppose life is good in general.

You know to be honest, It really is good and I can’t complain.  I am still single. I don’t mind.   I did like someone…… quite a bit actually, but I’m not sure that he feels that way about me.  I did finally get up the courage though to tell him,   in an e-mail.  I chickened out. But that’s okay to I guess. He pretends he never read it and has never mentioned it, so I’m gathering t hat he’d rather stay friends and pretend I never said anything.    At any rate, I am moving on and not waiting.

Well I thought I would at least post something so the world knew I was alive!

 

Stay tuned

Your too pretty to be a landman….

So my boss has had me every day for a month now (or every day that I work for a month now) in the County Clerk’s Office doing research. This is actually my favorite part of the job. I love to do research, whether it be in the County Clerk’s records or in the law libraries of the second floor. I LOVE IT. But I’m sitting out in the hallway reading and writing stuff on my legal pad (I now know why attorney’s have them) and the following conversation takes place with an attorney who shall remain nameless to protect the Guilty….

(Scene, I am sitting in the hallway….I hear footsteps and look up…. and then)

 

Mr. Guilty: Well Hi there! You’re too pretty to be a Land man (for those of you that do not know what that is, Landmen are at County Clerk’s offices researching Deeds usually to find out mineral rights)

ME: I’m not a land man, I am a legal Assistant.

Mr. Guilty: Oh…… my mistake…. have a good day I’m late for an appointment.

(I’m still sitting there and reading about two hours later……….. I’ll put it this way, I’m doing research on a big project and must make sure of every detail…Anyway…… Mr. Guilty walks back and this time here it goes..)

Mr. Guilty walks up and extends his hand and says….. Hi, My name is Mr. Guilty (obviously not his name) and I’m a local attorney here in town. ”

My name is Raychel with a Y……. (obviously gave my real last name)

Mr. Guilty:    Nice, what firm are you working for?

I tell him where I work.

Mr. Guilty:   That’s good.  I know your boss (of course he does, t he town we live in is small duh!) and if your doing his research he must trust you a lot and you must be good at what you do.

Me:  Thank you for the compliments.  My boss is wonderful and I’m actually going to school to be an attorney.

Mr. Guilty:  Well seems like you have your head on straight.  Hope I see you around sometime, it’s nice to see something pretty in here every now and then.

 

Okay so he leaves and I’m left going………… UGH!!!     Yeah it’s nice to get a compliment but honestly it just made me feel……………………..  UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH!

 

Well now I haven’t blogged in here in quite a while, and for that I apologize. Life has been REALLY busy!  I’m taking four classes and a Lab this semester, and while I’m doing really well in school, it is kicking my butt!   It’s not that the work is hard, but it seems like this semester all of my teachers got together to have all of their tests on the same day and yeah….. enough said.

I bought an RV (travel trailer).  Honestly it is really nice!!  It has a pull out and the BATHROOM!! OMG, it’s got a nice sized bathroom. 

See I decided long ago that when I went off to law school I would live in an RV because lot rent is cheaper than apartment rent and includes most utilities except electricity.  So when this RV came along at a really good price ($6000) I couldn’t say no to trying to get it.  AND I DID!  The bank loaned me the money to buy it and now it’s mine.   

 

I just find that I don’t have a lot of “house” things.  I have plates!! Those I bought over christmas because I just loved them (didn’t know I’d have the RV so soon) but I need pots, pans, towels, wash rags, glass bowls, silverware, drinkware (though  you know what, I found Drinkware that I LOVE, I don’t like it I LOVE it….. and it’s only available in England!!! I’m gonna have to find a way to get it!!)

But I find that I don’t have a lot of this stuff.   Now I understand why people give housewarmings to “couples” because they don’t have crap.       I really get it.   But me being the college student I am, I’ll just get stuff on my own because people generally don’t think about the single girl needing “stuff” to!

 

Well guys, I posted just to make sure you guys knew I was alive. 

 

Just a student telling her story, one character at the time!

Starting Back…..

Well school is starting back for me tommorrow. I’m excited. I know. I am a Nerd.   Tell me something I don’t know.

I am excited! I got invited to join the School of Honors at SFA! (www.sfasu.edu/honors for those of you curious to know)

I am so excited about that!   I feel like finally my hard work is really paying off.

Though I’ve had people say “wow you seem to get a lot handed to you…”  but my dad made a good point today.  I was having lunch with him and someone said that but he pointed out, “You don’t see how hard she works for it.”  Which is true. I do work hard for it. Very hard.

Maybe this is a lesson that people don’t want to learn, but it’s a lesson I have learned and am reminded of daily.  Life doesn’t just “give” you anything. You have to work for it. The harder you work and put into something, the more you get out of it. That is one lesson that I hope everyone learns at some point in their lives. Learn and accept it.

Well guys it’s just a short blog tonight……….  getting ready for school tommorrow!

 

Just another blog by a student telling her story!

The Silent Thank You

I really think that I’m a very blessed person. I always tell myself things could be worse than they are. 

I think like most people who attend a junior college and try to make the transition to a four year college, one of my main concerns was the expense of college and paying for it. We all know I work to pay.

It really helped me when I went to SFA and talked to my financial aid counselor who told me that I would qualify for somethings. (I was too late to apply for scholarships at that point, but this year I turned my app in early!!) 

But one of the things she said that I would qualify for is the Lumberjack Grant. It’s for students like me who don’t qualify for federal financial aid, but that need it.  You know, I walked away from the conversation expecting only to receive a couple of hundred from it. That was okay with me!  It’s better than what I had gotten up until that point at AC,  NOTHING.  (BTW: I did also receive a $250.00 scholarship from Rotary, which helped GREATLY)

So the waiting process began and when I finally was able to view my financial aid information, I had received $1100 a semester from that grant!  I cried.   It was wonderful!

So I guess about this point you are wondering why I titled the Blog, The Silent Thank You….

Well you see that Grant I received came from funds that are donated anonymously to the school. Someone donated that money for the students who don’t qualify for federal financial aid because they wanted to help them. So this blog is to say Thank You.  Whoever you are, wherever you are…….. Thank You.  Your kindness and generosity means more than my words can ever express. I know without a doubt that I will “Pay It Forward” and return the favor that was granted to me. But since you have no name, this is my Thank You. Perhaps someone who knows the person or persons who donated to this fund will read this and pass it a long.

I’ve learned that throughout my journey, through school and through work, I wouldn’t have come as far as I had without a little encouragement.  I’d like to thank everyone that has encouraged and helped me. I’m only a third of the way to my life’s dream, but it’s almost here.

If your a student reading this, be sure you take every opportunity life gives you. Don’t sit idly by watching them pass. Everyone has excuses, but it’s up to you to decide whether you use that excuse as a reason why you can’t………  or if you use that excuse as the reason why you SHOULD.

I wish a lot of the time that my grandparents were still a live to see what all I have done. Both sets have passed away, the last one in Oct. of 2008. I remember my mom’s mom telling me that I only needed to count on myself. That I was the only one that could do anything with my life and that I COULD do anything if I worked hard enough for it. I know she would be so proud of me.  Her most of all I miss. I know she’s all around me now. But that doesn’t stop me from missing her every day. I wish she could have been around to see it all. To know that I did make it.  That my dreams really did come true because I worked hard and made them come true. To my Granny,  I miss you, love you and hope your looking down smiling.

Dreams aren’t just about dreaming up an idea and wishing for it to come true.    Mother Nature needs a little help.  The opportunity is there if your willing to put forth the effort.

Well guys that’s all for tonight…..

Just a student telling her story…

Every now and then…

Every now and then your reminded of the moments in  your life that are funny…..

I was asked to share my funniest law office story in this blog so here it is:

The day after I graduated AC the President’s daughter was getting married.  Like any person who lacks better things to do on a Saturday, I drive down with my mom and sisters to go see Crawford.   Now, I have slept on my graduation hair, didn’t get into bed until after 2 a.m. (I stayed up half the night looking at that diploma.  Sometimes I still can’t believe that I have it. )

Anyway, the hair is awful. I don’t even bother to fix it because we are riding in a convertible and that does a number on my hair anyway. We get down to Crawford and of course there are news crews there.  They start interviewing my sister and I’m slowly slinking away………. I look like crap to put it mildly.

 

Anyway my mom calls the office the next monday and tells the other lady to play a joke on me. And Suzie Q did. She came and said she saw me on the news and then told me it was a joke.

 

Now I told you that story to tell you another story………..

I answered the phone a few months later and this is how the conversation went:

**Ring Ring**

Me:    Law Office

Client: May I speak with (Ms. Cute Z Pie)

Me:      Let me check and see if she is in. May I say who is calling?

Client:   Rachel Johnson (Turn’s out that’s how she spelled her name)

Me:          Excuse me?

Client:    My name is Rachel Johnson

Me:         (at this point I think it’s a prank)  Okay mom you can quit playing a joke. What do you really want because I am at work and don’t have time for this crap?

Client:        (she had no idea)   Excuse me but I’d really like to talk to Ms. Cute Z Pie….

At this point i place her on hold and page Ms. Cute Z Pie.  I tell Ms. Cute Z Pie that the lady insists her name is Rachel Johnson but that I think it’s my mom playing a joke on me.

Ms. Cute Z Pie talks to the lady on the phone and I hear roaring laughter coming from her office.   After the phone conversation ends she comes up front and proceeds to tell me that the wife of one of her clients IS named Rachel (with no Y) Johnson and Ms. Cute Z Pie explained to her that my name was also that which was why I had said what I did.

About five minutes later the lady calls back again to give Ms. Cute Z Pie some information and I apologize profusely!!!   She laughed at it to. Now that she knew what my name was she thought it was hilarious.  What are the odds………..  but she accepted my apology. She even said she would have thought the same thing.

That by far is the funniest thing that ever happened to me. I still occasionally have to talk to this person.  She really is sweet and we constantly laugh about the misconception.

Understanding…

This blog isn’t about the law office…….. well sort of not……but more about a good lesson.

Yesterday in class I was sitting getting ready for the professor to come and and setting up so I could start notes easily.

The guy that sits (when he comes) in front of me starts saying I haven’t been here for weeks. (Three to be exact) The way he said it was like he was proud of that fact. So I told him that unfortunately my mom and dad aren’t paying my way, I AM so that’s why I’ve been here everyday. And he says well I understand that……and I stop him.

“No you don’t.  You don’t understand that. You never will understand that.  You will never understand what it’s like to wake up at 4:45 a.m. to get ready and drive yourself to school, go to school and then when you get out of school go work evenings at your job.  You won’t understand what its like to work three jobs and because you have to pay for school and pay your own bills at the same time. 

You won’t understand because no one has made you grow up.  You got to college and you did not understand what it was to have all this freedom. Now you don’t know how to handle it.  You choose to go out and drink vodka (which is what he admitted he had been doing) and then you cannot even wake up for class. I hope that you never ever have to know what I’m going through to get my education. I just hope that eventually you find something you want bad enough to work as hard as I do for my education.  Maybe then you’ll understand a tiny bit of how I feel about school. I’m here for an education, not entertainment. I support myself, and when things are hard I can only depend on myself. I truly hope you don’t think that your fraternity is going to be there forever, eventually you will have to grow up.  Whether that be the day you kill someone by driving drunk (which is how he got home the night before…or back to his dorm room I should say). “….I proceeded to make him feel about two inches tall. My mom’s brother was murdered by a drunk driver when he was only 20 years old. 20 years old. He didn’t even have time to live or hope or dream before someone murdered him and took that away from him. My mom to this day cannot talk about her brother without breaking into tears, and rightfully so.   So really I’m what happens in the aftershocks.  You hear stories about someone you never got to meet.

But when I finished telling him about how he would never understand, I told him…. you shouldn’t say that you don’t come to class with that tone like you are proud of it because it only goes to show just how lazy you are.      And so he turned back around and didn’t say a word to anyone the rest of class.

 

And it is true.  He will never know, just like anyone else, unless they to are working for it.  I do see that I appreciate it more.

There is another guy who is in my government class, he never has shown up.  He lies about everything (he told me he was a junior, told another girl that he was graduating this semester and when I asked him what happened to the junior ranking he couldn’t lie fast enough…)  But I made him feel about two inches tall to. Tuesday morning he shows up before class and there are about three or four of us sitting there going over Notes and he asks,”Hey can I borrow your notes?” (Now I have been sick and on Tuesday can barely talk….but) I ask him, where have you been and why haven’t you been here?   So he comes up with some BS I was sick excuse and I just looked at him and proceeded to tell him, well I am sick to but I am here. You haven’t shown up to class but maybe four times this semester, you don’t care because your parents are paying for school (which they are) and I’ll be damned if I let you free load off of me. You can fail for all I care. (And I mean it. I show up everyday your not going to freeload off me. If you show up and you are trying I’ll go out of my way to help you do anything, but if you can’t even put forth effort, I’m not going to bother with you.) The people sitting there started clapping.

Honestly I think that people generally are afraid to stand up and say No you cannot have my notes. It’s generally just easier and avoids conflict for you to hand them over but I’m not about to do that. And I don’t mind conflict at all. I don’t mind saying No. The girl that sits next to me started talking to me after class saying I cannot believe you told him No.    Well I meant it.  No one is going to use me to get a free ride.

Well that is all for now.  Stay tuned, I will be writing a lot more here. I am just in the middle of studying for my finals next week.

Stay tuned, this blog told by a Student telling her Story…

There comes a time….

There comes a time when you have to draw the line.  Tonights blog also brings home the point………. If you take a job and agree to work for someone, actually WORK for them. Don’t play.

Today I had to set the parental controls so that the receptionist in the office can no longer play on myspace all day long. Sometimes it really does bite having to be the bad guy, but at the same time, I mind the fact that we are billing clients and all she is doing is playing. There is a time for work and a time for play.

I didn’t mind it when she was getting her work done, but now it has become a real problem. I had noticed it over the past few weeks that she was playing more and more. (The last few weeks I have noticed it becoming very frequent and affecting her work. She will get on myspace as soon as the boss leaves to go to City (which can take four to five hours a day) and will still be on it trying to hide it when he comes back.)

At first I thought perhaps it was only me noticing this and maybe the problem isn’t as bad as I’m thinking. Then the other attorney in the office (Ms. Cute Z Pie) comes to me and says she hadn’t been getting some messages. So I decide that perhaps since this is a personnel problem I should go to the bookkeeper (I view her as sort of an office manager kind of). Miss Hot Stuff then told me that she had noticed it to and would definately tell Mr. NonAmbu Lance Chaser.  

Today he asked me if, since I knew how, I would make it to where she can’t play on it anymore.  So tonight I stayed after work and did so.

I think I have finally figured out why she has had quite a few jobs over the last few years. Honestly she’s a really nice person and I think if she put forth the effort could be taught quite a lot, but she still has a lot to learn about working in a legal setting.  I just hope she grows up a little bit and will realize that some of the suggestions I’m asking of her are to help her……We shall see.

 

Stay Tuned……. Another blog by a student telling her story.

You can teach an old dog new tricks…..and Yellow Paper

Well I guess the saying is wrong.  You can teach an old dog new tricks after all…….if the dog wants to learn.

My boss comes to me this morning……..”I think I’m going to break down and get myself a computer.  You think you could help me if I did?”

Well of course! Yes I would help my boss learn how to use a computer. Regardless of whether or not I think that he probably doesn’t need one…………. I’ll help anyone learn if they want to. And he asked me!  Wow……. Even if the man doesn’t buy a computer for himself I still feel privaleged that he asked me.

Okay on another note, I needed to find something humerous to write about. Today it hit me. I was telling our Bookkeeper (Ms. HotStuff) that we needed some more of the letterhead paper. Only I call it yellow paper, because back me up on this…….. the paper is the color of a post it note and post it notes are yellow. Agree?   I thought you would.

So today it just so happens she gives me a blank stare when I say the yellow paper. So then I show her…. “Oh the Ivory Paper”………  and she points to the package where it says ivory.  At this point, I’ve conceded my point that the paper is yellow…………. BUT…… I will not concede defeat.

The mother of one of the Monkey’s invented white out.  Liquid Paper.  I use this wonderful invention, mark out the Ivory and promptly write Yellow.      Ms. Hotstuff found it half way through the day and said “Thanks for the Laugh.”

Unexpected Surprises

You never know when you will find unexpected surprises.

Today I had to go back to my old school and get a couple of things for my new school. I decide to drop in and visit my most favorite teacher/friend.    Yes she knows who she is!!! 

And you literally never know where your going to get unexpected surprises. She’s sitting there registering a student and then the student was telling me that my…..well she’s sorta my boss but sorta not…..was speaking very highly of me.  And that really just made my day!

It also isn’t the first time that I’ve heard that Miss Cute Z Pie has said very very good things about me. Another lady that we work with a lot called up the other day and was saying that Miss Cute Z Pie said she really misses me all the time when I am gone to school or am off and that she really thinks a lot of me.

I also think a lot of her to. She really deals with some difficult cases…..difficult not just in the work but mainly in the subject matter. I really respect the work that she does. I used to think that I could never handle family cases…..but the more I read and the more she helps me learn, I realize…..perhaps I’m meant to.   I have a great respect for Miss Cute Z Pie. She is great at what she does and we have a great working relationship. She comes to my office to vent, I go to hers to vent, she comes and thinks out loud sometimes. I really really like her.  Heck she was even going to let me stay with her when I had no electricity after the Hurricane…..and she let me drive the Lincoln and didn’t even think twice about giving me the keys. (I, on the other hand was like, WOAHHHHH….hang on a sec…. your giving me the keys to your not even 1 year old car and asking me to drive somehere (because my dad and I carpool I didn’t have mine that day)!!!!)  I just never stopped to think about how much trust she really does have for me.

It’s very humbling. Very humbling to think that someone really does think highly of you. That someone sees how hard you are working and it comes back to you at moments when you least expect it but greatly need to hear it. Not that Miss Cute Z Pie doesn’t tell me things….she all the time is saying Thank You or that was nice……….but I guess I don’t think about the stuff I do as anything so “grand”.  I’m just helpful.  Always have been and always will be. I always think, I should check and see if she needs something from the Courthouse since I’m going…….or especially when emergencies happen…..I should e-mail her all of her messages since she had to leave so she’ll know who has called.     It’s just little things. Yeah so I get to lunch a few minutes late when I do that…or I don’t leave right at five when I do that……..but at the same time when I need to be a few minutes late or if an emergency happens to me (which it did, my grandmother passed away in October) then She and my Boss (Mr. Non Ambu Lance Chaser) really and truly are there for me.  Even my boss has said that he just got lucky when he found me.  Well not so much found me, but lucked into me.

And we talk about that, my boss and I. We both know how I got the internship. Even he has said some times…….your dad does so much for me and has done so much for me over the past 20 something years (since the guy has been in town) that the least I could do for him was let his kid intern. And that’s what at first it started out as, but not what it turned into. 

And I know how most people would see it if they were in his shoes.   I can stomach my friends kid for a few months and then the internship will be over. But when that kid turns out to be someone who is very valuable and has skills and really does work………then it becomes a whole nother story. Then it becomes…….well Who you know got you here but What you know and How hard you work is what is Keeping you here and getting you a paying job. (And a raise not even a few months later.)  I won’t give figures but I’m making what several of my friends wished they had made after they graduated.

I’ve also learned as a legal assistant you have to make yourself very indispensable to the attorney. Your job is to make his/her life easier. By doing that, you pretty well have job security. If your getting your job done and working hard…..and I mean working not just goofing off but really working, the attorney will do anything they can to keep you. That’s a good feeling.

Alright well I have a government test…………..  (I will be so glad when this semester is over. At least now I’ll be able to take upper level classes!!) It is time to study!!

Another blog….written by a Student Telling her story (one day at the time.)

Proving Points…and Compromise

I love my boss. Really I do………… But even he sometimes has his little quirks that make me just want to say Grrrrrr. 

One of these is the fact that being “efficient” isn’t necessarily what his idea of work is.  See in our office the attorney is gone a lot of the time because he is also a city judge. He’s away from the office at least half the day and on Wednesday and Thursday most all day he is out of the office.  In order to let us know what he wants us to do, he dictates on a tape (now sometimes I have to fill in the blanks with the instructions but that’s another story.)  Whenever he is through dictating on a file he will leave it on my desk (or rather the green table across the room in my office) and that’s that.   Here is where we differ…..

He would like me to pick up one file, dictate the instructions, and then do the instructions and stick it back on his inbox.

I, however, like to pick up all the tapes, dictate them and then I go through and do the little things (like if there are twenty files on my desk and six of them are letters, I do those first because they take the shortest amount of time and then stick them all in his inbox) and I rearrange the files in order of the most important and critical to do to the least important (or the one that the closing date is a little later). 

He can’t stand this and last week we had a…..I wouldn’t call it spat but he basically just came in and told me to just do One thing at the time and not to move the files around because that is how he remembers what is back in my office.  Okay so I can understand his point in needing to know what is back there. But I tried to explain to him that by doing it just as he wants, we get behind and some clients have to wait a little longer because others will come in with no appointments expecting a magic wand to pop up and say POOF your documents are ready.  (Again, I believe that the client who has made the appointment and come in the “correct” way should have their items finished first [unless there REALLY is an emergency] so I generally try to do their stuff first.)

Again he just insisted I do one thing at the time.   Okay, I’m not gonna waste time arguing.  Instead I will just prove my point. So since it is very early in the morning I did one tape at the time, then did the instructions and then did whatever the instructions said and put it in his inbox.   Instead of being able to get through 12-20 tapes a day…….I got through 8. 

I took a vacation day on Friday because I was going to a concert (which was AWESOME by the way…..I had floor seats!!!!) and today I get back and he comes back there……. we are so behind. (Which we are a little bit but not so much that I couldn’t catch us back up.  This time we are behind because the week before [week of Oct. 6] my grandmother passed away on the 6th (ironically this one, my dad’s mom, died the same day as my mom’s mom six years later] and I only worked one day that week.  But now that I am back, and really and truly in full swing I am positive that I can catch us back up.

So here is where the compromise comes in.   He finally admits that my way is probably more efficient but he really needs to know what it is that I have back in my office. So my compromise is that, I will just leave the files where they are, but I will dictate all the tapes so that way I can see what needs to be done, and then I’ll put the instructions on top of the files. If the files still have the instructions on them I have not gotten to them yet, but he can look and see if the pile is gone, which would mean I am working on it.    It’s a compromise that will help him keep his memory………… and help me stay efficient.  I guess you could say it’s the best of both worlds.