damn the muse

Holder in due course…hello Commercial Paper!

After 5 years I still remember what that means. A part of me wants to freak out, but another part of me is saying: BRING IT ON!!

I’m aceing this sucker.

And you lose some…

The BIA did not grant my motion to reopen or stay a deportation. They said there was not enough material evidence to merit reopening my client’s case.

To be fair, I knew that this could happen. I just don’t like losing. And it sucks for my clients.

Part of the joy of being a member of Netflix is in discovering and watching their vast collection of foreign and independant films.  I can spend an hour alone searching through the Instant Watching selection just trying to decide what to add to my queue and maybe what to see next.  Then of course there’s my small addiction to Japanese animation, or anime.  It showed up on Netflix last Spring and I’ve been devouring the stuff since.  Sure, I really wish they came included with subtitles, but I’m not going to dismiss a perfectly good series just because it’s dubbed.  Unless it’s horribly dubbed.  There have been a few of those.

I’m running out of anime series!

I’ll have weekends were all I do is have movie marathons and throw in some anime to mix things up a bit.  Actually, once I get obsessed with a series, I drop everything else until I’ve finished the last episode.  It’s so bad.  But then again I tend to be that way with books too.

I finished watching Princess Tutu today.  What an endearing little series.  Netflix recommended it because I enjoyed Ouran which to this day I still can’t understand why I enjoyed that one, but still.  Tutu was cute and funny, but never in a way that made it seem like I was watching something meant for little kids; quite the opposite, by the third episode there were themes that were very adult.  The series deals with love and hate, loss and acceptance.  And the music is amazing!  It’s a magical girl transformation series that uses classical music for its score.  As a music nut, I just loved to watch and identify the composers.  Mahler, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, etc.  I’m really going to miss watching it. 

Bar results came out last week, and for the first time in a long time I forgot until my boss walked in and mentioned that St. Mary’s managed to score poorely once again.

Oh boy.  Here we go.

A year ago my alma mater was celebrating its improving results.  Apparently they had even brought in a consultant from California to assist with the bar passage rate. 

Deep down I’m listening to my boss talk about this and I can feel my insides twitch.  Bar schmar! 

The discussion leads into the do’s and don’ts of the TX Bar Exam, including some minor referencing of past experiences for the benefit of a future examinee in the room.  And I’m feeling antsy by this time.  Guilty, maybe?

Hell, I don’t even know if I’ll take this beast in February, but based on how I was reacting today, I’m in trouble!  My beautiful peace and resolve has been destroyed!

The process of filing and asylum brief with supporting documents is tedious and agonizing. The first time I did it, I fretted over the brief for an entire month. It took me weeks to research, and days to write. It also happened to be the weekend of Halloween, and my friends had to pry me off the computer. However, it paid off. Migraine. Check. Asylum granted? Hell yeah.

My brief did not win that asylum. My client did. Her story made me cry when we were practicing our direct examination for trial. She finally opened up that day about what happened to her, and I believe even the truly heartless would not have had a dry eye after listening to her.

Ugh.

And I have another abuse asylum case that I’m finishing up. I can even recycle parts of my own brief! The subject matter however, is not something I’m looking forward to reading about in depth. Thankfully, for a brief, I only have to gloss over the surface. Give the facts, show there was persecution, demonstrate my client falls under a protected social class (group), and therefore deserves asylum. The hard part comes after, when you’re sitting face to face with your client and asking her to tell her story again, but this time your asking her not to sugar-coat it. She’s had the time, and the counseling. Now she needs to convince a judge that she really was abused, and that her country won’t protect her. Her testimony needs to be convincing. So while the facts in my brief may be clinical and disconnected, her words need to be emotional and raw.

I practice to ensure my clients know what to expect. Prepare them for the inevitable cross-examination, and just get them through it.

But it all starts with a brief.

El Paso must have around 1 million inhabitants. This is of course a guestimate because I haven’t bothered to check Wikipaedia or the latest census data. Also, it’s probably a given that not everyone filled out those lovely forms (I received them three times after I filled mine out!)

And in a city so vast and with looming traffic problems, I’ve discovered that they’re so, so behind on technology and transportation, and information. God, it reminded me why I will not move back!

It took me a good half hour to speak to a live person regarding their paratransit service. Why? Because the numbers on the website where wrong! When I finally found a correct number, the person on the other line made sure to let me know they were wrong. Really? My suggestion, you might want to change that. So I called the new number, left a message, and five minutes later received a call back with the information I needed.

It’s all well and good, until I have to call and actually schedule my pickup times this week. Then I have to keep my fingers crossed and hope someone picks me up and takes me to the conference!

I was looking at their website again today to scout out regular bus routes. Buses run between 30 minutes to an hour for the most part. The majority of routes end by 9 pm. I had better be finished by then if I get left behind.

Oh, and the most amusing part about my little scavenger hunt? Sun Metro has a Facebook page. They’re introducing many of the same changes VIA plans to do. I was just intrigued by all the complaints.

I don’t know what I would do without my dog, Ravi. He makes me smile everyday. In the mornings he lies down by my knees while I eat, or nudges right next to me when he wants to be petted. When I’m home from work he jumps on the couch ready for me to put the leash on him so I can take him out. He’ll lie on his back so I can scratch his belly, and I swear he does it on purpose because he knows he looks adorable doing it. And he sleeps curled up against my back in bed. He won that battle. I tried.

My dog is smart. When I’m mad at him he howls. It’s a cute baby howl. It’s practically impossible not too laugh. He sounds like I’m killing him, and I haven’t even touched him! Seriously, he’s so melodramatic! I wonder where he gets that from…

It’s impossible to discipline him. He does know that I’m the alpha, but barely. When I’m training him… let’s not mention the training. The clicker is a godsend though.

Here’s the thing. My dog is like my kid. I adore him and worry about him. I never would have thought like this a year ago. I’ve joined ‘that’ club. Awesome!

The Family Based Immigration Conference is scheduled in El Paso a week before Thanksgiving, and it’s my first attending.  I’m excited about the conference but handling the transportation has been a pain in the butt.

Before I left El Paso, the city was known for its advancements in transportation.  San Antonio modeled their system initially after my hometown.  Then the city kind of went to hell.  But that’s no surprise because being that it’s the safest city means it’s also the most boring.  Anyway…

I had heard that transit programs gave visitors trips for a limited time.  San Antonio’s VIA has it though I can no longer find the link.  After a week and a phonecall, I finally found the same info on the SunMetro website.  Now I just need to talk to a live person and hope I don’t get ditched on the days of the conference.

You never know.

If there was one thing set in my mind from the time I was a kid, it was that I would fight for people’s rights.  I was old enough then to understand that I was different, and as such treated with a certain fragility and ackwardness which I freely took advantage of by high school.  I also knew that somehow I was related to an infamous Mexican attorney disguised as my grandfather, so I had to prove myself.  Advocacy was a legacy.  Not necessarily inherited, but earned. 

My grandfather.

I think about him and I remember the man who was literally a jack of all trades.  He was a lawyer.  Then judge.  Engineer.  He even went to pharmacy school.  That last bit got him into alot of trouble in his later years.  My grandfather was a very smart man.  Too bad he was so bitter in the end. 

I remember the day I found out he died.  It was a few days before graduation, and my father called to give me the bad news.  I was so disappointed afterwards.  At first all I could think was how he had ruined this for me.  If he had just followed the doctor’s instructions…   Now the majority of my family was going to have to bail.

Then I realized it wasn’t so much the disappointment that they wouldn’t be here that bothered me, but that my grandfather would miss my graduation from law school.  He was looking forward to this trip.  I know he would have been proud.

His absence in my grandmother’s house is still a litte erie.  The rooms are too quiet, yet everyone else is calm but busy.  I find myself wondering what he would he think of Mexico’s current situation.  Then I stop because I know that’s not a rant I’d want to be trapped into with him.  Papa Ricardo did like to rant, and poor ole me had to listen because I was usually trapped in manual wheelchair unable to wheel away!

Those were the days.

What do you write about on days when you’re supposed to write about everything?

I swear NaNoWriMo means the plague is coming and it ain’t pretty. How do I know? I actually wrote something today. It was about 100 words, but at least it was something! And then of course my dog started licking me and my tablet. Then my tablet attempted to delete an entire paragraph, freaking me out in the process. Thankfully, the ‘undo’ button is awesome, and my work was saved.

To be honest I’m kind of loving the whole typing on the couch with my tablet. The access it provides is intriguing. The accidental auto-delete was not cool, but the independence from the desktop is nice. I tried the voice function and it failed stupendously. If it has a training function I have yet to find it. Maybe I’ll make it my goal for tomorrow.

So technology is supposed to be fun.  I’m typing right now from my uber cool tablet.  If it publishes ok, then I’ll be very much amused.

Cheers!

Tuesdays and Wednesdays have been difficult these past few weeks. For our office we hold consultations on these days, and I typically answer questions from people wanting to know if they can petition their spouse, their sibling, their child, etc. Mixed in with all that we’ve had people coming in asking about citizenship. I sometimes love these consultations because I get to tell people that they’re ready to become American citizens. Their eyes light up a little, and though they tend to be a little leery about the cost, or the questions that they might have to answer, they get excited.

Lately though I’ve had too many consultations where paperwork was done by “notarios.” In Mexico, a notario has the same recognition as an attorney. Actually, some attorneys are notaries. It’s considered to be a special distinction. Here, a notario is a notary public and has no business doing legal work, yet immigrants and their families go to them everyday and have their paperwork filled out incorrectly by these people. Then they come to us asking why they never received an approval, why it’s taking so long, why the application was denied, why they’re getting deported?

It’s depressing.

Notarios, and people who can be classified as such, may be sued under the DTPA thanks to some courageous people in DAs offices around the state and country. However, it’s not enough. These immigrants have no recourse other than to sue. They can’t get their supposed place back in line, can’t really take back whatever was submitted to the government. The damage has been done thanks to the misrepresentation, and unlike victims of crime who have a visa they can apply for, there is no crime to report. At least not that the government will recognize… yet. They basically lose it all, and get some change in the process.

So, it’s been a tough few weeks.

After three months I think I’m starting to get when something is up with Ravi. When he’s under the weather he tends to get clingy and sleeps a bit more than usual, and the next morning he’ll quite suddenly throw up. The first time it happened I freaked out. I was determined to take him to the vet that afternoon and had left him wrapped in this huge blanket in his crate. I asked everyone at work if they thought he had a cold. Was he dying? By the time I got home my provider had got him out and he was jumping on me and licking me and eating everything in sight. He was fine. So the second time it happened I still freaked out a bit, but I realized I would not find him keeled over when I came home. Sure enough I was right.

Today, my puppy has anxiety, or something. He can’t stop wanting to bite me! Granted, it’s not the type of biting that draws blood. No, he likes it when I scratch his belly and somehow my finger ends up in his mouth. He really wanted my fingers! And when I refused he went crazy. Ravi can get uber excited and run circles all over the condo in hyper-speed, and today he did it a few more times than usual. It was funny and disturbing. I played with him hoping it would tire him out, but that didn’t work. I finally had to resort to the spray bottle, and fortunately now he’s cutely collapsed on my bed.

I’m just wondering why he’s biting again. Oh well, hopefully tomorrow will be better.

An acquaintance of mine from Newsvine came up with this nifty service called Lendle for Kindle users. Add all the legal Kindle books you own to the website (apparently now you can sync) and then you can lend and borrow ebooks with other Lendle users. The service relies heavily on user participation and the publishers’ desire to borrow a book, so many books can only be lent once during a 14 day period, and some can’t at all.

I have lent three ebooks, bought three since joining, and borrowed two of which I just finished the first one – Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Wow, did I misjudge this book!

It’s long. 800 pages + methinks. For the first couple dozen chapters I found myself wanting to choke the main character, Mr.Norrell, because he was just dull, and it was kind of the point. I kept expecting dragons or some twist that would just blow me away! Except this is the kind of book that hits you sideways, and with each nonsensical meaningless chapter, you start to realize that maybe they did have a meaning after all.

Dear blog,

It’s not that I can’t stand you. Ours has been a love/hate relationship lasting four years now. I started you ages ago, and then quite suddenly I found a job and life became too complicated. I think newsvine can take some of the credit too!

Now I’m just too busy again, though I won this fabulous asylum case that gave me a migraine. I even garnered a mention on Bender’s, which is so cool. Mostly, I’m just happy that my client won’t be returning to a country where she will probably be killed.

If you had asked me five years ago what I thought I would be doing with my life, it might have included the words “rights, writing, and home.” Back then I was still living through hell, but I still firmly believed in civil rights and writing to my heart’s content. Never would I have thought I’d be doing immigration…

Oh, and blog, you have been warned. I have a 6 month old Chihuahua named Ravi. He is my obsession, and I have caught myself wanting to write about him every single day!! Seriously, this puppy can do no wrong, and when he does, I can’t stay mad. He is just too cute, and too damn smart!

I’m aching for a new layout, and nothing rings a bell.

When god created the Kindle, it could not have forseen the consequences on poor little ole me. That and Netflix. It’s like I have my books back in an easy to access and hold gadget that doesn’t have to be balanced or strategically placed for the perfect reading light. No, my Kindle just needs a coin slot and EPUB compatibility to help me support my reading habit, because I have a voracious one. When I was younger my mother banned me to the library because I was insufferable. She’d buy me 5 books, and I’d devour them in less than two weeks. This was quite the healthy habit.

Now, I’m back at it, but for some reason work has a habit of getting in the way…

Comments are back up and working again. Sorry, I just couldn’t stand the smileys. And since php is so sensitive, I apparently missed something. Oops.

New Moon landed in my mail slot yesterday. I really wanted to see how “Twilight” continued in movie form even though I already know what happens. Wikipaedia is my best friend afterall. So I popped it in the DVD player and OH MY GOD, I was just as horrified as I thought I’d be. Seriously?

I get that it’s heartbreaking to be dumped, and for teenagers it just seems to be like the end of the world. I am truely spoiled because Buffy did it better, but seriously? Edward is a creep. A real sadistic creep. “Oh, I don’t want to hurt you, Bella. I’m so selfish. Bye.” A year passes. He thinks she’s dead and suddenly he tries to kill himself??? Please, do it very painfully! The Volturi were more interesting than Edward.

And poor Jacob. The nice guys always get screwed! I found myself pleading for a knock down drag out fight between Edward and Jacob at the end because I thought it would be amusing. Alas, it did not happen. Maybe in Eclipse? I may not be able to stomach more of these.

If little girls want to grow up to be like Bella our society is doomed.

Scientists are reporting that California is long overdue for a major earthquake. It’s not enough that other countries have been hit with these quakes this year. Cali has missed its mark by a few decades, though I fail to see how the San Francisco quake doesn’t count.

There are questions that are positively easy to answer, and then there are questions that just leave me dumbstruck. The “what happened to you” question always falls somewhere in the middle. Depending on who asks it can be fairly simple to answer even if the answer might be a little complicated. If a stranger asks, they’ll regret ever asking that question again.

My neighbor, Mika, asked me the question two days ago. It completely unbalanced me. I think I wasn’t prepared even though I caught myself taking the deep breath and reminding myself to keep eye contact with him. The words came out as if I were an encyclopaedia. Automatic and even a bit self-deprecating. Telling him at that moment made me feel so vulnerable, so exposed. I’ve known Mika for weeks now. He’s such a sweetheart, and we have fun together (his espresso is to die for). The most remarkable thing he did after I told him was nothing. No apology. No pity-like stare. Nothing. He just chatted on about this guy he wanted to date and had promised to lift because the poor thing had broken his legs. Simple as that.

Except for me it was the most difficult revelation I have had to make to a new friend in a while. And I know I wasn’t devastated. I think I was really just afraid of what he’d think of me after I gave him the whole spiel. Maybe I was even disappointed. He didn’t give me the satisfaction of acting like everyone else. And if he did, he hid it really well. No, Mika accepted my explanation and moved on. I looked into his eyes and he was smiling. Mika was thinking about the guy.

So much for easy questions.

The newscasters are throwing around the “d” word again. Drought. Already? I just want it to rain so it can cool down and don’t have to see those three little digits we like to call 100. This does not include the head index.

Rain, where are you? I miss you!

Hand it to CNET to find the wacky Japanese inventions. And this one is just amusing – a device that teaches men about menstruation. It bleeds and simulates cramping. Watch the creepy video. And then threaten to buy one the next time a guy friend says we’re just complaining.

Seriously, I love the Japanese.

What a stressful week it must have been for the Teabaggers. Elena Kagan was confirmed as the next female Supreme Court Justice, Lindsay Lohan was released from jail, and California’s Proposition 8 was declared unconstitutional. Of course now the Governator wants same-sex weddings to resume seeing as the amendment violates the Equal Protection Clause and can’t be enforced anymore. It’s only fair, right?

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown filed motions Friday calling for resumption of same-sex weddings in the state.

The officials filed the motions after U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker previously overturned California’s voter-approved gay marriage ban, known as Proposition 8.

Resuming gay marriage “is consistent with California’s long history of treating all people and their relationships with equal dignity and respect,” Schwarzenegger said in his legal filing.

Walker ruled Wednesday the ban violates federal equal protections and due process laws.

Really the only thing missing is for other states to follow California’s lead and allow gay marriage. Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen until this thing gets to the Supreme Court. Hopefully, Judge Walker will allow the resumption of the weddings.

For the past few days I’ve been dreaming. We all dream, so its the most natural thing, but the majority of the time we don’t remember them. I don’t remember my dreams, except for these last few days. They have been wild and crazy and beyond absurd. I’ll wake up and feel as if I’ve escaped the insanity of it all, and then while I’m doing some meaningless task my dream will return to me in all its disturbing glory.

I used to love to dream. I used to get such wonderful ideas from my subconcious. Now my mind is telling me that I’m upset, and I need to deal with it, or it won’t leave me alone. At least that’s what I hope it’s trying to tell me. Me, the mistress of calm and patience. It feels like I’m oozing anxiety from every pore.

And it’s not work, and it’s not me.

It’s just so difficult watching the people around you get hurt. Worse still if they face the possibility of becoming disabled. For me, I was born this way. I don’t know any other life than this. For them, it’s being taken away. It affects them and the people they love. I feel like I’m facing a ticking time-bomb that’s about to go off. Will it happen or won’t it? Life goes on regardless, but what a crappy thing to happen. And because it’s personal, it affects me more because I know what lies ahead.

I just hope this person gets better.

And my dreams stop.

Every time I see an article on self-publishing, I get this sick little grin. Who would have thought ereaders would have made self-publishing so relevant now? When I started up my domain I was just proud to find people willing to share their writing and learn from each other. Maybe even try to put an anthology together, but the task of such a thing was in itself daunting. Back then even publishing something on your own was difficult and expensive. Now, it’s as simple as clicking a button or so it seems.

Until recently, reviewers and booksellers looked down on self-published authors the way Anna Wintour scorns Dress Barn. Now new writers and established authors alike are increasingly taking publishing into their own hands, and the publishing establishment is paying attention. According to a recent Bowker report, the market for “nontraditional books” in the United States grew by more than 750,000 new titles in 2009—a 181 percent increase over 2008. Five of the top 100 bestsellers in the Kindle store—which now produces more sales than Amazon’s hardcover list—are currently self-published.

Electronic books are very easy to make, and they’re quite inexpensive compared to a hardcover edition. Couple that with ease of access and 70 to 80 percent in return of royalties, and it’s a better bargain for the burgeoning author. The only downside is that you’re not going to sell if you’re not any good. Out there in commercial land, it’s difficult to sell one good book well while being inundated with drivel.

So while it’s getting easier to spread the word and publish the next Great American Novel, I have a feeling that the publishing industry isn’t quite finished yet.

So Catholicism and Anne Rice do not agree with each other? And it only took 10 years for the woman to figure this out!

I just hope she doesn’t decide to write more adventures with dear ole Lestat, because if she assassinates another character I may have to give away my autographed edition of Interview with the Vampire, and I really don’t want to.

Leave my vamps alone, woman!

Deeply Problematic has the new Carnival up. The theme this time is evidence. It’s a pretty good read.

Media dis&dat has a transcript of President Obama’s speech yesterday, and links referencing the ADA’s Anniversary.

Some of the highlights from the speech include a mandate that any newly constructed buildings be completely accessible, including private businesses.

Obama also signed an executive order promising to hire more disBLED federal workers.

It’s an interesting read.

Here I am calmly listening to Pandora, and suddenly out of the blue Eminem starts blaring through my speakers. I am not a rap fan, but this is the second song on his Recovery LP that I’m just loving. Actually, I’ve always enjoyed his music though I always thought that it lost it’s ingenuity because the radio stations played it just too much. And here he is again, releasing new music with the same powerful effect. How can a Lady Gaga radio station start playing Eminem? If I get NIN I will be amused.