Beauty Things?

So, my life is pretty boring, and I'm spending a lot of time waiting for something to happen that will make me make a decision about what to do in the future.  I'm pretty sure these thoughts will be resolved in a few months.  Until then, I'm going to do some Beauty Blogging, because make up is pretty much my life.  As soon as i get the pics taken and the products tried, I'm going to start reviewing my Ipsy Glam Bags.  we shall see.    

Stop Spending

Attempting to not spend a ton of money anymore.  This is wicked hard for me, on account of I like to get stuff.  I like to hunt it down, purchase it, and then fantasize about my uses of stuff. this is all kinds of stuff, this is eye shadow  to t-shirts, to shoes, to storage containers.  I am in love with stuff.

But I need to save money for school, even though I am debating the wisdom of taking out loans for my last semesters anyway.  I want to be comfortable and not stressed.  And it;s not like I'm ever going to have the ability to repay the amount I have taken out.  That's why income based repayment exists, now.  Because no one can pay back their massive loans.

So, anyway, I'm keeping track of my spending and it makes me sad.  I miss you, Ulta.  I still love you, Target.

Finally Got A Job!!!!

Yay!  As I write this, I am in my old law school apartment, staying in Lansing for new provider training. I got a job as a legal advocate with a woman's shelter.  I had applied for a position as a fill in advocate, but the shelter manager saw my resume and knew I was better suited to a full time job as a legal advocate...and there was a job opening.  The money is not great, but I've returned home to minimize expenses.  I also still plan to attend the local community college to get an associate's degree in nursing, I just plan to save the money now and pay as I go.

I've made peace with the fact that I will be on income based repayment after I get the ADN.  And I will probably never be able to pay off the full amount I borrowed.  If I had known what the legal job market was like, I never would have gone to law school.  I would have worked a few years and maybe gotten a Master's Degree.  But the choices have been made, the debt exists.  Now, I just have to live with it and realize I, like many others, will pay on it for twenty years, take my discharge, and pay taxes on the discharged portion.  Hopefully, I will have a job I love at some point.

The job I have now, I love.  I feel that this office is such a positive place to work compared to the hellhole my cousin was running. I have not had tp cry on this job.  I don't feel overwhelmed, or mistreated.  I feel respected.  I have health insurance kicking in on January 1st.  I don't have to fight with my boss's wife over mileage reimbursement.  I am grateful, and happy, and this is the first time in over a year I have really felt happy.

Kiss Kiss Meow Meow,
Mimi  

Considering a "Career" Change

It looks like nursing is a field where you can get a job that actually pays you money.  So, I may be growing a bit more student debt (although, I'll probably be living with my parents, so it will be low and possibly just to cover the tuition), and going back to community college to become a Nurse.

I've been thinking lately that even if I get a job now, my law degree is worthless.  Except, I've got a fuckton of debt invested in it, and I can;t repay it with the law degree.  To pay for my law degree, I'm going to have to do something else.  I think I would be a great nurse.  I love people and I love to help them/  I'm a hand-holder and a cheerleader and a care giver.  This would be a career where I enjoyed my life and got to wear scrubs.  So, basically, the plan is to become a Nurse, to pay off my lawyer debt.  Right now, all I want is to forget that fucking law degree.  When I am back in school, studying nursing, my loans will be in deferment.  When I get out, the chances that I can go onto the standard repayment plan are a lot higher than they are with the bar card.  There's like two lawyer jobs available in Michigan versus 2k nurse jobs.

You do the math.

Is that cat pee I smell? Nope, just the scent of dying dreams.

I spend too much time reading these awful stories about JDs who live in their parents basement,and want to kill themselves over student debt. I'm five months shy of the basement, but I continue to hope, however naively, that I'll get another job.  I've actually started applying for some.

I went to a temp agency, and that experience was gross enough to make me email a recruiter from a document review service and beg for a temp job there. At least the money would be better and no one else gets a cut of it.  And you're required to have a law license.
  
First, the temp agency smelled like cat pee.  They made me do this written tests where I had to do proofreading and math.  Stuff that I have never needed because I have spell checker and a calculator.  They told me of course they could find me legal work as a secretary or an assistant.   But I started to realize I don't want to do that kind of work.  I like the law, but not enough to do something a high school educated person, like the girl who informed in the lobby that you alphabetize files by the subject's LAST name, could do.  She can have that $10/hour job.  She's gonna need it more than me.  I can work for per diem companies, and go on income based repayment, and eat ramen for the rest of my life.  But I'm working as a secretary   Paralegal, yes.  Secretary, no.

I would rather work retail than work at a law firm as a secretary. I know the kinds of toxic attorneys I'd be working with.  RETAIL.

I also posted my resume on a few different websites and am continuing to apply for things. The only other thing of note that has happened in my life is that I finally got my closet cleaned out enough to see the floor and I will be selling some stuff on Craigslist soon.  

Turned Down For a Job...Again

Came home from a day in town, where I did not buy anything, because I have no job and no money, to find a rejection letter from a position I applied for as a receptionist.  I'm apparently not quite what they were looking for.  This is what comes of claiming to be a law student, instead of a law grad I guess?  I was also rejected by Jackson National Life for two jobs.  I'm hoping the ones I've applied for in Mt. Pleasant go better.  Lansing doesn't want me.

I'm going shopping at IKEA on Friday with my mom and sister, and had to ask my dad for shopping money.  I wish I had never gone to law school.

But maybe I will get a job doing something lawyery again.  I'm only 27, and that degree will last for the rest of my life right?

Kiss Kiss Meow Meow,
Mariah

I had a Job...For about five minutes!

Since I last wrote here a few things have changed.  First, I was employed.  Now, I am no longer employed, but if you want the full details of that story, I'm going to be saving it for the time I get published in book form. 

I took the February Bar Exam in Michigan.  I passed it.  I started working for a relative who has "established" his own law firm in Northern Michigan.  I should never have taken the job in the first place.  There was no way I would be able to meet my student loan obligations working for this guy, which he told me during my interview where he suggested I request a forbearance on my student loans.  He expected me to somehow learn everything organically, and his communication skills were on par with someone who has serious autism.  Not to knock the autistic, I'm sure, some of them would have made better bosses.

Everything was fine at the job until I started to take my Saturdays off.  When I started the job, I worked every day but Sundays, and I typically worked at least ten hours a day.  I was not paid hourly.  I was paid $500 a week, no matter how much I worked.  This was explained to me as a "draw against comission," however, I could possibly end up owing this employer money.  I know, you're thinking what the fuck?  Most used car salesmen get a better deal than this.  The job also did not include any sort of benefits.  Because the "firm" is up north, it was hard for me to find an apartment to rent.  I had to rent a trailer in a trailer park.  The park turned out to be very nice and I am glad I was able to stay there for awhile. 

Anyway, I was told that I would be able to make a "comission" 40% of whatever hours I billed.  When I think about this now, it's a total scam.  I could work at McDonalds and have more money, health insurance (that came out of my check, but at least was offered) and a better quality of life.  At McDonald's.  With a law degree.

Anyway, when I stopped working the Saturday, I got a call from my employer's mother, who also worked at the firm, despite the fact that she is 76 and can't even take a coherent phone message.  She basically told me I needed to work harder, and I needed to work on Saturdays.  I could have weekends off in a few years.  I told her I wanted to spend the weekends with my family.  I was living 160 miles away from them and I was lonely.  She retorted that if I worked harder, I wouldn't be lonely.  I knew that my "employer" was urging her to make these comments.  She was simply not smart enough to come up with this on her own.

I became seriously depressed.  Just getting up int he morning was a struggle.  My left hand and arm began to hurt and eventually the pointer finger and the thumb lost all feeling.  I would have panic attacks at night, and sit in my bedroom on the phone with my dad, crying.  i would beg my boyfriend to make the three hour drive to visit me, beg him to skip school and work, because I was so miserable and alone.

 I felt trapped up there.  I started looking for other jobs.  I'd already quit mentally, and I spent the days leaving at 5:30 and starting my job search at noon.  I flirted with the baliffs in the Courthouse and I tried to spend all my extra time in the clerks offices.  I was never paid the money he said he owed me, money that was tethered to the hours I had billed.  I was given a final cash payment that I will have to pay taxes on in the spring of next year.  We parted on very bad terms, he thought I was deceitful and I think he was a bad employer.  It was a situation that I wish I had never been placed in to begin with.  I wish that I had followed my instincts when I first began to intern with this man.  I felt that he was a person who did not care about his employees, would not lose sleep over his clients, and really only cared about the bottom line.  My instincts were good, my fear of never being offered a lawyer job was what made me choose this.  I understand that law is a business.  But I don't understand working 80 hour weeks doing something you hate, making yourself and your family miserable. 

I am currently unemployed and living with my dad, looking for a job in my hometown, or in Lansing.  I do not regret losing that job, because it was not much of a job to begin with.  It was a scam, and I was like an unwitting Amway saleswoman.  I was asked to invest more in moving costs, and commuting costs (I lived forty minutes from the office) than I was paid. 

I'm worried about my student debt, (100k+).  I'm in forbearance and when I get a job, I will go on the income based and try to allocate as much cash as possible toward those loan payments.

I know there are a bunch of other unemployed law grads out there who probably think I am whiny and should have stuck with this job, but it was just not worth it to me.  I spent more money commuting six days a week, than I was paid.  I'm angry about what happened, but I just want to have a job I don't hate.  I don;t think that's asking too much.

Kiss Kiss Meow Meow
Ever-so-slightly-subdued,
Mariah