Goin' to California...

Maybe, and with not as much of an achin' in my heart as Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.

But I'm getting more and more resolved to the west coast. I know California's infrastructure is about as broken as Afghanistan's, and that should be a red flag to someone who wants to work in civil service. The job just may not be there four years from now.

And despite that being the cut and paste answer I give to people when I talk about it, I also think that's a shitty reason not to do something. They just as well may be. I like to work in absolutes, because there are so few of them. All I know is if I want to make something work, it'll work. That attitude has got me into law school, so I'm going to keep on believing it will get me through it too.

The truth is, California seems like an interesting place to practice law. The bar exam is notoriously tricky, and the state is basically an economy all its own. Plus, it's a paradise. As much as I would love to live in a city that houses over 8 million people and work for Legal Aid, a much larger area (seven counties or something) that is occupied just shy of 8 million people seems more inviting, mobile and versatile. Plus, some counties are contracted PD work, and some aren't. I like having the option of working for the man against the man or a non=profic organization... which the U.S. Gov't obviously is... I'll be here all night.

Seton Hall sent me a fee waiver, and LSU should be any day now (Baton Rouge is a pretty happening city, and New Orleans would be an awesome place to work as a PD), so really, I have a lot of deciding to do. I should probably head wherever the debt will be the lightest, but there seems to be plenty of options to help shoulder debt and keep me out of a legal factory or off of one of those awesome legal shows like ABC's "The Deep End"... while the majority of my dialogue is sarcasm, I really don't see that sustaining my sanity and good nature while working in a big firm, kissing a partner's ass for face time and worrying about billable hours; that's would be my version of J.P. Sartre's hell. Complete submission to subtle social control.

It also seems like, barring Yale, that where I go to law school is where I'll be practicing, and where I'll be living. Right now my scholarship to SCU will save me about a years worth of tuition. Adding up two more years of tuition and living expenses in Santa Clara (which slays in rent and cost of living compared to the rest of the country), I'm still looking at least 120k. That's uncomfortable. I didn't even bother applying to UC Davis or UC Hastings because of their absurd out-of-state tuition hikes. UC Hastings is something absurd like 50k in tuition alone. And I didn't apply to UC Berkeley because they still employ John Yoo; probably would've been worth 200k debt otherwise. But job prospects in Santa Clara, San Jose, San Mateo and San Francisco are very solid with a degree from SCU, a place I've dreamed of living and working for over five years now.

And that's where I am... waiting to see what Pacific McGeorge offers me scholarship wise, and then really thinking about where I can do the most good living and working, and what's going to be the kindest on my credit score, because odds are I'll be there (in state and debt) for awhile.