Not dancing yet, but I will

Remember that Springsteen Concert, I went to?  Well, right after I came back to St. Paul, my big toe started hurting and my left foot swelled up.  I couldn't bend the toe and it hurt to put weight on it without wanting to collapse.  At first, I wrapped an Ace bandage around it and tried to tough it out, figuring it would figure itself out.  After a week, though, I couldn't take it anymore and went to a Clinic to have a person smarter than myself deal with it.  The doctor who looked at it said it could be three things.  It could be a stress fracture, severe tendinitis, or it could be gout.  And she was sure it was gout.
For those of you who don't know, gout is a condition caused by the build-up of uric acid in the blood stream, and it commonly flairs up after someone indulges in high-protein foods and/or alcohol.  Given that I had noticed the symptoms right after going to Chicago and indulging in some amazing food and more than a bit of alcohol, the diagnosis made a lot of sense.  But, we wouldn't know for sure without a blood test, which I would have to come back for next week.  She seemed pretty sure it was gout though.  I hoped to hell she was wrong.
Gout, as you probably know, is not curable.  It's a disease that once you have it, you keep having recurrences of it throughout your life.  Which means you need to avoid alcohol and protein.  And that does not sound like a lot of fun.  But more than that, I really did not want to believe I could have something at this age that could not be cured.  I didn't want to believe that my body was defective, for lack of a better word.  I know my body will turn on me at some point and I'll get some condition, disease, or problem that I won't have any choice but to deal with for the rest of my life.  But, I didn't want to believe I was old enough for that to start happening now.  Which is ridiculous, but that has not stopped me from believing irrational things in the past and I doubt it's stopping me now.
The doctor prescribed some anti-inflammatory meds, which is apparently the treatment for any of the problems it could be and I scheduled a follow-up visit with my regular doctor.  In the interim, I wore around a walking boot for a couple of days, which aggravated my back and made me feel even older and more infirmed.  I was miserable.  I take walking around, dancing*, and general mobility for granted and this was pointing out to me how important those things are to me and my sense of well-being.
By the next week, the inflammation and swelling had gone down and I was in much better shape.  It still hurt, but it was better.  We did the blood test and he examined the joint that was the problem and he decided that I had merely sprained my toe joint, which most likely happened when I was dancing at the Springsteen concert--Wrigley Field had exacted its revenge on me once again. 
I say merely a sprain, because it's better than gout, but it was a really good sprain.  Luckily the same anti-inflammatory medication was the right way to go and all that was necessary was to rest it and do some physical-therapy-style exercises.  So that's good news.  And in fact, things now are almost all back to normal.  I've been wearing some spiffy tennis shoes to school for a couple weeks and that's helped insulate my foot and I'm doing my exercises.  I'm probably at 85% now.  Not dancing yet, but I will soon.
*Note 1.  Not good dancing, but dancing around my house when I'm feeling good or when I need to feel good.  Or just for whatever.  This is generally not the kind of dancing I would inflict on others.

Mooted

So.  I am looking over my off-brief argument for moot court.  For those who don't know, some moot courts require contestants to argue the case they're given both ways.  That is, everyone is required to turn in a brief of their argument and then during the oral argument phase, they are required to argue for their brief (the "on-brief argument") and later against the position of their brief (the "off-brief argument").  It's designed to make you better at oral arguments, because you're looking at both sides of the argument and can then prepare for what the other side will say.  But, because I was writing a brief on one side, that side got much more attention and was better researched.
This hadn't been much of a problem until two weeks ago when I was last giving my off-brief argument.  And I got completely destroyed by a professor.  I mean destroyed.  He decided that my reading of a convention was not correct and, after us going back and forth (me respectfully, him less so*), he just happened to have the convention with him and read it out--looking straight at the convention and reading it out slowly and methodically.  And where I contended the language was "as such," he read out "such as," which changes the meaning of everything I was saying and pretty much killed me.  It was embarrassing and humiliating.  It was beyond discouraging.  It meant I needed to re-do all the research I had put into that argument, and given the fact that we're so close to the competition date, it meant I had wasted the prior time and I had to get my shit together.
This professor and I have a history.  I took a class with him last semester and ended up really respecting him.  He's sharp, articulate, and prepared.  He was the smartest guy in the room, and I couldn't blame him for enjoying that.  We didn't always agree on the subject matter, but I received good feedback throughout the class with him.  I also did a writing project with him that further showed me that he was a great guy.  He was not always happy with what I had written and had a tendency to be very dismissive when I was on the wrong track, but I always thought it came from a place of helpfulness.  I thought he really wanted me to succeed and do better work than I had.
So.  Fast forward to today when I am doing my research.  I looked at the convention as it was reprinted in our packet for the competition.  And it says "as such," as I contended.  Okay.  No biggie, we're supposed to be using live legal precedents and such, so it's probably just a misprint.  I mean, this professor was looking right at the friggin' thing.  And this at least explains my problem.  I hadn't researched this as thoroughly as I should have.
So.  I look it up from a reliable source that does not make misprints.  And it says "as such," as I fucking contended it did.  I've checked 5 different and very reliable sources.  They all agree that the conventions says "as such," which means either this professor of law didn't read it correctly when he was stridently reading out the convention to me, or it means he lied for some reason.  I can't help but think he lied.  I don't want to delve into the possible reasons, but he was reading it very carefully and very slowly and looking specifically for whether it said "as such," or "such as."  And I wouldn't mind so much if after we were done, he didn't look at me and say, "Well, I got you on that point."
I guess I have to chalk it up as a lesson.  I'm not exactly sure what that lesson is, beyond you can't take anyone's word for it, even if they're reading from the book.

*Note 1.  Which he explained as preparing us for the judges who are likely to be less than patient with us.

Jobs (or breaking out of my paralysis)

So my moot court brief is in.  The worst of that is over, and now I have to turn my attention to what I have been putting off since...well, since a long time ago.  I have to turn my attention to getting a job.
About a year from now, I will have (hopefully) just been told I passed the bar and that my career as an attorney can officially begin.  And my goal is to have a job at least close to in place by that time.  But, of course, there are obstacles to this.  Some of them I have absolutely no control over (the job market*, the whims of employers**, and the randomness of job searching).  I need to let go of as much of that as I can and concentrate on what I do have control over, because I have focused so much on all of that and I have come away feeling depressed or angry.  But more than that, I've come away feeling paralyzed.  And I cannot afford that anymore.  I have to get moving.
So let's focus on what I can control.
First--my grades (more or less).  I don't know if now that I'm done with OCI*** that the employers I will be looking at will be less concerned with grades.  I've been told that by a couple of people, but I'm not quite buying it.  It probably cannot hurt in any situation to say, 'but look at my grades, I'm awesome.'
Second--my networking.  I am not comfortable with "networking" as a concept.  I am not comfortable with "networking" in action.  I am a quiet, introverted person and getting out there and asking people a bunch of questions, while also giving them information on me and what I'm looking for in a job, is daunting to me.  But this is how jobs are found, I'm told.  And it's not like I'm an uninteresting person.  I just have trouble opening-up, which I think is pretty common.  So.  I just have to be more assertive and confident.  Which I can do.  No, I really can.
Third--my goals.  A) what kind of work I want to do.  This has probably been my biggest problem with the whole job-getting thing.  I don't know exactly where I want to work.  I have friends who love love love criminal law, or tax law****, or elder law. I have not had that, exactly.  I have really liked working with clients.  I really enjoy the times when I've been able to counsel them (under supervision, at this point), talk with them, you know, actually be a lawyer.  I've liked the areas I've worked in, but I think more than the law, I've liked the clients.  And if I had to distill it all down, that's what I want--to work with individuals, and not huge corporate entities (by which I mean small business would be fun to work with, but not gigantic corps.).  This eliminates some career paths, but not that many really.  And when someone asks what sort of law I want to be in, I feel odd saying, 'I want to help people.'  It just feels like something a naive person says.  And it doesn't say anything about what I want to do, really.  You can help people in almost any type of law.
At this point, I am really having trouble breaking it down farther than that.  I don't want to foreclose an area of law that may end up being interesting, but I also don't want to come off like an idiot who doesn't know what they want to do (even though this might be true).
B)  where I want to work.  This is actually a much easier question for me.  I want to work at a medium or small firm (or in the government if possible).  I want to work in an atmosphere that allows for challenge, but I don't want to feel like I have not time for life.
Fourth--my expectations.  Look, it is shitty in the job market right now.  So, yes, I have to hustle and get to know people, hoping they'll want to help me out.  But I need to allow for the fact that a lot of my running around may lead nowhere.  And that has to be okay.  At the same time, I need to be smart about using my time, because I am still pretty busy with school and such.  I won't get a job in one day, so I just need to allow for that.

*Note 1.  For the love of all that is good, can any attorney I talk with about the job market not mention the words, "tough," "rough," or "shitty" to me?  I know it sucks.  Reminding me of it just makes me feel like I should be doing more.  (And, yes, I probably should be doing more, but reminding me of that is not necessary.)  I also don't need to be reminded that competition is fierce.  I can compete.  Trust.
**Note 2.  One actual job interview I went on involved the interviewer speaking in the most convoluted way he could think of (and he was really creative about it) and then asking me, "Now, what did I just say?"  He was testing my ability to reason on my feet, which is fair, I suppose.  But man that sucked.
***Note 3.  Ugh.
****Note 4.  For real.  LOVES tax law.  I took income tax this semester partially hoping I too would fall for the sultry seductress of spreadsheets, but alas, it was not meant to be.