2002-03-06 - 9:12 p.m.

I'm proud of myself! At 9:12 pm I have managed to clean up the kitchen, do some laundry, get all kids to bed, make lunches for tommorrow and have made a pot of "Harvest sausage lentil soup" (a recipie from Viansa winery MMMMMmmm!) The soup needs to simmer for the next hour during which I will read/ write/ relax and organize myself for tommorrow. The soup will be for dinner tommorrow night. I thought it would be nice to make it now to make my husband's life easier as the dinner hour is sheer hell at times here! Its the meltdown time for our baby and toddler in addition to being the whiney unreasonable phase of the older children's day. This angst can be alleviated by serving dinner early- which might actually be feasible if it is prepared ahead of time! What takes 15 minutes now in prep cooking would likely take an hour when trying to do it while entertaining and feeding hungry cranky babies and supervising older kids homework.

I am excited to be going to the AILA (American Immigration Lawyers Association) conference in D.C. tommorrow. I discovered this conference only today at 4:30 pm as I looked at the AILA web site. I am glad I contacted the attorney I am starting to work with in handling Immigration matters and he offered to pay for me to go. I am also glad my husband agreed to babysit the kids depite the fact that tommorrow in the early afternoon he has a consulting conference call job for which he'll get paid. He hopes to tucker the kids out and successfully time naps and/or Barney time for them upstairs while he is downstairs on the call. He can put one in the crib and the other in our bed where she will not stray and they both should sleep comfortably for that hour. (Hopefully!)

I also have my car scheduled to go in for routine service at the dealer tommorrow! It figures everything happens at once! Here I have nothing on my agenda except kid related activities for weeks and now I have to do all the ME things at once!

I am excited to be working though a little nervous about my expertise (or lack thereof!) I have my JD completed, however fell asleep during the last attempt at the BAR exam. The fact the baby was born nine days before that makes me feel like I am not REALLY incapable of passing that test! I intend to study and try again this summer. Until then I can not practice law, however am allowed to work under the supervision of a liscenced attorney. I can not be paid by clients (although he can be paid! And we interpert that to mean he can pay me for my work!) I could get standing in the Immigration courts if I petitioned for it as being under the supervision of an attorney. The main problem is that the attorney I am working with has never done Immigration work before- and in fact its more like he's doing ME a favor by building clientel for me for when I am on my own. I don't think he even needs the work as he's a fantastic guy with 33 yrs experience and a great reputation. He just wants to help people and is enabling me to do so along with him. The fear for me is that I have no one to ask for advice/assistance. I'm really making all the judgement calls and its almost like being on my own. He actually is very shart- so he'll point out if he thinks I am misguided of course, however I seem to have more knowledge of Immigration law than him!

The good news is that the AILA will be a great resource. Unfortunatly I already bought the book that they are giving out at the conference tommorrow! I think that is a good sign assuming that I picked the best materials to work with when just starting out as we are. I hope to get a discount at the conference since I have the book already.

My other dilemma is that it seems that to join the AILA you have to either be a liscensed attorney who has practiced for three years, work at a nonprodit that provides pro bono legal assistance, or a law student. I fall in the no mans land in between those categories. My boss could join, but he and I prefer if I join as once I pass the bar I will be the one doing all the Immigration work.

I'd like to be able to join now to get the resources they have for members only, and to get the member's discounts.

I'll talk to the AILA folks at the conference to see if I can swing that some way.

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