Various Personal Updates

Wow, I'm up pretty early (well...early for me). That's because, not too long ago, I got a call from the police officer who came to see me on Tuesday about LA Girl's complaint against me. I had e-mailed him to ask if he'd include in his report that she never asked me not to contact her and wanted to make sure that this would not show up in a background check. He told me that, because it's not a criminal incident, it would not. He also reassured me that I do not have to report this to the Bar or on the Character & Fitness Examination.

But I did the research last night, and this seems like one of those things that you don't have to report but, on the other hand, you do have to report. Being admitted to the Bar is about being candid, and if you're not and they find out...no matter what the lack of omission is, you could end up disbarred or not admitted to the bar because of the omission rather than the incident itself. My reaction? Shit.

The good thing about that is, in combination with what kind of complaint it was, it seems if I just am upfront about it then I should still be okay. I checked the incident logs online last night and found my situation, and I found out it's actually a harassment complaint, not a stalking complaint. So I don't think it's serious enough for me to not get admitted to the Bar, and it's something I can definitely explain. The officer did mention stalking when I was talking to him the first time, though, and I think what he was saying was if I contact her again and she decides to file charges it will be considered stalking.

By looking at the incident log, I saw that she actually mentioned my blog to them. I don't think she gave them the link or anything, and I don't know if she has ever looked at my blog. The officer never mentioned the blog to me. Her name is not on my blog--no one I know has their name on my blog, nor will they ever unless they say they want that or are fine with that. I was kind of surprised she mentioned it, though. I found out I can get a copy of the report the officer files when it's available, and I will do that and see what it says.

The thing I'm most happy about is I thought about myself first. I've always been a career-oriented woman, and that, initially, was all I was concerned with when this happened. I'm not going to put anyone else before my goals ever. Then I wondered why she did this. So I asked the officer when he called how she sounded when she filed the complaint--did she sound/seem scared? He seemed to say yes without directly saying yes.

It had already been true that I didn't want to study for finals, but this has really given me an excuse to not study. For the past two days, I haven't been able to completely focus on anything because, before I knew it, I would be staring off into space deep in thought without realizing it. I had intended to work on my take-home exam tomorrow/Friday, but I realized that wasn't going to work since I hadn't studied at all yet (yes, we need to study for take-home exams here). So I got someone to take my work shift on Saturday in hopes of my actually being able to sit down and do that exam. I am immensely happy that this didn't happen while I was working on my final paper for one of my classes, because that paper was more essential than this take-home exam is. I am hoping I can make 'A's in all the classes I'm taking for a grade, and I am not getting a grade in the class with the take-home exam (unless I fail). I did find it interesting that it took her a week & a half to call the police, though.

I feel better today than the past two days. I feel like I can actually focus on things now and that I will be able to study today. I'm hoping to spend a large part of today and most of tomorrow hitting the books. Since this class is not really for a grade, I just need to show a little something on the exam, not knock it out of the park, and I will be okay. Hopefully by next week, I will feel good enough to really crank it out for the the in-class exam I have for a grade. I think I will. For the past two days, I have not wanted to eat. In fact, I ate nothing on Tuesday. Yesterday, I tried to make myself eat and was rather unsuccessful--can you image having a hot fudge sundae, a free fudge brownie thrown in (I totally didn't ask for it, and it usually does not come with what I ordered) and a salad (which, I absolutely love salads, and the place I ordered from has the best salad I've ever tasted!)...and not being able to eat most of that?

A couple things have made me smile. Seeing my favorite singer ever on "American Idol" last night...even though she sang with Elvis Presley an Elvis Presley song, but okay. She still sounded amazing, and I "tivoed" that performance. And I was watching BET this morning after the officer called, and my former celebrity crush, singer Mya, was on there. Is it just me or has she gotten "blacker" in how she acts? I could notice stuff like this and laugh about it today.

I could even make a joke out of this harassment situation today--actually, a couple jokes. For one thing, I'm having trouble getting into this class I want to take outside of the law school. So I've been having to e-mail and e-mail people to see if there's a way I can get in soon, because there are almost no seats left in the class. Finally, I e-mailed the professor as a last resort (and I call him a last resort because, out of all the people I have contacted, he should be the last one to know how I can get into the class). This whole situation has me really gunshy, so, first off, I was like, "Sorry to bother you..." I've e-mailed him a couple times before about the class, so I just kind of imagined that if I finally do get into this class it will be after truly harassing some people. And I thought to myself, "Well...obviously I'm very good at it. I have the police report to prove it!"

For some reason, I can deal with being called a "harasser" rather than stalker. I actually do think harassment falls in line with my personality, but I just tend to think of it as "tenacious" or "persistent." When I really want something, I don't give up...and although I think that's usually a good thing, sometimes it's bad. Of course, I never wanted to harass her, and now that I know she felt like I was to the point of calling the police, I am completely done with her. The depression and the hurt that I've felt have not been because I am upset about the friendship. I mean, for me, there's nothing like sending the police after me just because of an adult version of a "will you be my friend? check yes or no"/apology letter to totally change how I feel about someone and make me lose interest. But I was depressed and hurt more because of a combination of worrying about my career, feeling stigmatized and like everyone knows--even though no one I know should know and no one at the law school should know about this--and worrying that she really felt scared or like I was a threat to her.

Over the past year or so, nearly everyone I've told about this chick has basically told me that I shouldn't be interested in having her as a friend--not that they knew her, just what I told them about her and our relationship dynamic. I realize that's unfair--they are going by what I had to say only. But, in fact, one of my friends had told me she sounds kind of crazy months before this happened. And after I told my friend the psychologist about the police incident, he euphemistically said the same thing repeatedly. Both of these friends of mine are in fuddy duddy, touchy feely fields, i.e. social work and psychology, so they have been trained in reading and understanding people, and are entrusted with people and sensitive situations. Sometimes social workers don't work directly with people on problems, but my friend works directly with troubled youth. Both of these friends thought the way she just completely wouldn't talk to me after everything had been going well might have been kind of a warning signal.

This incident is another reason why I do want to get into this class about queers of color. I figure most of them will be of color, we share the same interests--at least in terms of wanting to explore the topic and its readings and engage in classroom discussions about it--maybe I could meet some cool, sane people whom I won't have to "harass" into a friendship. ;) But as scared as I was of women before, this makes me even more so...maybe I will just try to talk to the guys? hehe.

I think I actually feel like eating right now, so...I'm off to look for food before I hit the books...or bs with my mp3 player. ;)