another update that's not much of an update

...so, Friday I got sworn in! And other than that, it's been all work, all the time. On Friday night, friends from the office were going out to celebrate a birthday and also to drink to my swearing in, if I felt like joining them, but I was so tired from a week of work that I went home and was in bed by 7:30. Really!

It's hard to explain why it is so exhausting - there's almost no physical activity involved (I do take the stairs rather than the elevator, and occasionally we walk to lunch or the courthouse) - it's the mental effort that wears me out. On Friday, for instance, by boss said "I need you to write an opposition to this motion. It's due today, and you're swearing in at 4:30, so you'd better have it done by 3 so you can make changes before you leave." And that was at 11 or 11:30, on issues of law I had almost no experience with. I skipped lunch and got it done - and I was actually pretty happy with the end product - but it just takes tremendous focus to accomplish that kind of thing. That is exhausting.

My boss and my coworkers are fantastic. I feel incredibly fortunate to have this job at this time, because the boss in charge of my unit is very good at teaching and training. He's really tough on us in his unit, but it's with the goal of making us into good lawyers. At one time he was actually a professor in the local college, and he trained police officers, and now he is training (and carrying a caseload, and doing appeals) in the prosecutor's office. So for me, it's like I'm getting paid to go through a super intensive law school with a criminal focus. I haven't heard of anyone else with that kind of experience in their first job.