Non-Sequiturs: Meet Stella Q.

[Ed. note: We requested some assistance with Non-Sequiturs — and thankfully, you have obliged. After sifting through the applications, we have selected your new writer.
Meet Stella Q., the newest member of the team here at Above the Law. For those of you who’d like more gender balance here at ATL, you will be pleased to learn that she is a woman — for real.
And now, we turn the floor over to Stella Q.]
Plus ça change…
From the first day of law school, I have been looking for a way out. I will not bore you with the details, but needless to say, after countless plans hatched and dreams deferred, I ended up riding out all three years and actually graduating. I can’t even make a self-deprecating remark about “barely” graduating, since I attended a school that pretends it doesn’t give out grades. (Really, Law School X, how can you proudly claim us as this country’s future preeminent legal scholars, corporate titans and political leaders if you honestly believe we will buy into that “no class rank” malarky?)
So I dutifully took the bar, left my law school university town immediately thereafter, and promptly began a 3-month deprogramming that consisted of replacing the sights and sounds of law school life with more plans and dreams that would never materialize (i.e. watching lots of TV). I thought that I would miraculously stumble upon a Starbucks/YouTube-esque entrepreneurial opportunity or maybe just get knocked up and lovingly choose full-time motherhood (because a modern, post-Sex and the City woman is allowed to choose her choice, you know).
But wouldn’t you know it, October soon rolled around, and there I was in NYC, fully suited, at my former Biglaw firm at 8.15 a.m. for my first day of work. By day, I was living in a generic, obscenely expensive rental building surrounded by young lawyers and bankers, and by night, I was toiling away in generic, obscenely airless diligence rooms surrounded by young lawyers and bankers. Many a night, I would be poring over board minutes, oblivious that the lights had automatically turned off at 2 a.m.
Fast forward a few years. I am still here (albeit at another Biglaw firm), doing pretty much the same thing. Between my initial loss of ten (10) pounds due to fear and loathing and the catch-up gain of twenty (20) pounds once the fear and loathing were replaced by boredom and resignation, I grappled to forge some kind of identity among the first-year gunners, the self-proclaimed cool partners, Nazi senior associates, M&A frat boys and hot female attorneys. But alas, except on Seamlessweb, where I expertly navigate the menus according to mood, work load, projected billables and sensitivity to certain food smells in the confines of my small office, I could not find any firm footing.
Until now. Thank you, ATL, for making me feel like I belong!

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