I had an interesting evening. A Big Law Firm hosted a reception for law students. I went, which was a nice way to ease back into the job hunt, which I'm going to need to get more into from here on out.
It was interesting - I think I was the only 3L. In some ways the job hunt will be harder this time around: there are fewer 3L than 2L positions out there, particularly at big firms, and the stakes are higher this time around (this time I really need a job!). But I already can tell that, to the extent it's possible, I will enjoy this year's search much better than last year's. As a 3L I am a real person looking for a real job. For the 2L summer, there's something very artificial about the whole process. Firms and students preen and posture for each other. There's something un-honest about the whole process, it seems. I don't mean that there's dishonesty, but it sometimes seems like the whole firm-2L wooing process is so skewed towards the wooing, and so disconnected from any substantive law practice, that it's hard to really see it as a job application process. Whereas now, for me, even with the same firms it will come down to whether the firm has an opening in a practice area I would like to do. It also seems like the substance of what I can bring will matter more - particularly since now there's more to bring - and I find that less discouraging and dysfunctional than the 2L job search process had been.
The really interesting thing about the evening though was that I bumped into my LSAT teacher at the reception. I'd really liked my LSAT class - somewhat in spite of myself because as someone who typically tests well on these standardized things, I tended to be of the mind that prep courses were a load of crap. But I actually liked my class and I liked the teacher, and I was telling him tonight how I thought that some of the lessons - particularly those for the analytical reasoning sections - have remained with me and even been useful in law school.
Anyway, at the time I took the class I don't think he'd expressed any interest in going to law school himself. I think he may have mentioned thinking about taking the LSAT as a lark, but it seemed to not be part of the path he was on. But obviously since then he's switched gears, and now he's a rising 2L. Cool guy, and a good teacher - he should do well.
The problem with my evening, however, and the origin of this post's title, was that as I got on the BART to go home I discovered, to my disgust, that a bird had defecated on me. It ended up all over my backpack, my fingers, and my suit. It was a very unpleasant commute, waiting to wash my now-filthy hands. And it's very annoying that now I'm going to have to get my suit drycleaned. But what REALLY concerns me is that I'm not sure when this happened. I didn't notice until after I'd left the reception, but I'm not entirely sure it hadn't happened before. I therefore find myself really really hoping that it didn't happen until then, and that I was not walking around the Big Law Firm Reception all night with bird crap on my back.