Worst day of my life

Ok, so that was rather hyperbolic, but I am definately having a downer day. I feel like i have faield at my externship. I know that I am over-reacting, but I can't help but feel it's partly true. In the last 5 or so weeks I've written three things for the court. One that is polished and pretty... which the judge has yet to see. And two things that were drafts that the fulltime clerk wanted to see after I finished a draft. And that was it... a draft. I gave it to them and said... the citations need cleaning, and I need to do a serious organizational and grammatical edit. You know, this is a first draft. Sigh. So imagine my utter horror at THAT VERSION being given to the judge. Shit.

And I feel like the clerk I gave this stuff to now no longer thinks I can do anything. It was a first freaking draft. Lesson learned: when they say draft... they mean pretty damn close to finished. Sigh. Damnit. From a networking way, I just feel like these weeks were totally wasted. Shit.

Writing lessons:

• The passive voice is loved by me... i know this but I usually clean that up on edit. I need to write in active voice to start with.
• My transactional phrases at the sentence level suck. I usually forget the phrases and just go with the single word transition like rather or however or moreover... and those are lovely but there are lovely transitional phrases that read well too.
• i need to outline a wee bit more before I write... so i realize when two different claims have the same element ahead of time, so i don't write like an idiot.
• And i need ot spend less time researching and just start writing already.
  

Not a happy day for Joey. But hey, it's almost over, right?

trying to put a good face on it: I really have learned tons and tons about what good writing is and nuances on pleadings that i don't think i would have learned before.

still... it's going to be awkward to say why i don't have a letter of recommendation from this judge when it's interviewing time. At least I still have an "A" in my writing class to try and talk around.