It's been another busy week - court on Monday, no foie gras farm visit Tuesday (I think we're going sometime this week instead), minor Malcolm emergency on Wednesday, memo memo memo Thursday-Friday. I did manage to do some fun stuff, though. My roommate and I went to see Pirates 3 on Friday (verdict - totally plotless but completely entertaining, particularly the bit with multiple Johnnies). We also went rock climbing yesterday at the little indoor climbing gym in New Paltz, which was loads of fun and highly addictive. I've always wanted to try it and practically everyone at this office is into it, so I thought I ought to learn the basics before the next after-work excursion. I'm sore today, but it was worth it, and as soon as I got home yesterday I logged on to Zappos.com and bought climbing shoes so I don't have to rent them next time. (Renting shoes is just gross.)

Malcolm is just fine, by the way - he slipped into the basement of this house when the owners left the door open, and got all freaked out and tore some claws while racing around. We had to take him to the emergency vet in Poughkeepsie because he was bleeding everywhere, but his little toes are healing very well and he was back to his old self by Thursday morning.

Now that I have officially (sort of) practiced law for three weeks, I can say with certainty that I love being a lawyer, but I can definitely see how a lot of people are unhappy with their decision to go into the law. Apart from the actual meetings with clients (of which I've had a couple during my time here, both in person and telephonically), legal work pretty much consists of reading, reading, more reading, and the occasional writing. Obviously, this is right up my alley. But even I find it somewhat tedious when I've been hunting for some obscure point of law for three hours, trying to figure out precisely how to prove what I'm being asked to prove. If I had to practice in an area of law in which I didn't truly, deeply believe, I think I'd find it boring as hell. (This is why I will never be a lawyer specializing in corporate finance.)

Also, when I interviewed with firms last summer, I told them I was more interested in transactional work than litigation, and I've completely changed my mind about that. Don't get me wrong, I'm still completely terrified by the thought of doing an oral argument (oh, trial advocacy next spring is going to be fun), and the whole "hurry up and wait" thing where you haul ass to submit something to the court ASAP and then you have to sit around and wait for your opposing counsel to respond can be kind of annoying, but the back-and-forth nature of litigation is just plain more interesting than sitting in your office examining the fine points of a contract for days on end. Of course, sometimes you have to contend with the fact that your opposing counsel is a completely incompetent, arrogant twat, but at least you get to make fun of him with your office mates.

I'm really interested to see how my next summer job will compare to this one. Right now, I love practicing law, but I wonder if job #2 will be equally great or if this one is just so great because of the people I work with and the nature of the work? I'll be sure to report back.