School
I am in my second year of law school. I am scheduled to graduate in May 2024 but may try to exit a semester early (December 2023). I had to take the Spring 2021 semester off after starting in Fall 2020. I am doing some quantitative research in Spring 2023 and working towards certification as a small claims court mediator. I might come back to DC for a semester or two next year, we’ll see what happens.

Business
elleSAT is alive and well but I have stepped back from tutoring as I find that it takes a great deal of mental energy and complicates my schedule. Most of my time with the business is spent advising other tutors on how to grow their own tutoring businesses – I know that I’m getting better at this all the time since my (much larger) competitors keep stealing my SEO strategy and lifting copy nearly verbatim from my site. The company continues to grow and I have some goals for next year, including building out our B2B sales, formalizing instutitional partnerships, and piloting destination programming. (Want to join us in Costa Rica or Mexico for an all-inclusive law school application retreat, including LSAT sessions, personal statement editing, and onsite yoga? Join my mailing list.)

Real Life
D’s parents moved into a house down the block about a year ago, it’s been a huge quality of life upgrade for all concerned. D and I moved into a new house in August. We have been engaged for over three years and will get married as soon as soon as it won’t have a negative impact on my student loan payments, or as soon as I need his health insurance, whichever comes first.

My mom and dad have been having some health issues and would appreciate hearing from any of you who are in touch with them.

Social media
I still use my business Instagram and have to have a Facebook account to manage it. I am transitioning to 100% business on all accounts except for the Instagram account I share with D. We use the Instagram for fun and to promote our town and local businesses. I’ll probably occasionally use Facebook because there are several Victorian homeowner groups that I like and because Marketplace killed CraigsList. I don’t read anything on LinkedIn and I will probably delete it after I finish school. I’m thinking about getting rid of my blog altogether and putting my pictures on Dropbox instead but I like the idea of self-hosting as many things as possible. I would like to transition our family to self-hosted email and quit Gmail, too. If I ever do that I’ll post about it on here.

Email me if you’d like to get a Christmas card. anita @ anitalife dot com.

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I hope this post helps someone else. I tried many things to resolve this, including:
– Tweaking my Internet Explorer settings within Microsoft Edge
– Setting FireFox as my default browser based on a single Reddit comment
– Spending a long time procrastinating by searching for information about how to make Outlook open dialog boxes in other browsers, then tweaking my default app settings to no avail

What finally worked was adding a password to my existing Zoom account. I signed up for a new Zoom account using my email address, then followed the instructions to login via the email message I received. It’s the last option on this list (“How to link your Zoom account to an email and password.”) This logged me into my familiar Google-integrated account and populated my Outlook invites with the correct static link.

This does not solve the broader Google authentication issue with Outlook popups, but at least I can use my Zoom account with my school email now.

I’m doing two podcasts with free question explanataions, and if I ever decide to learn to edit audio, I may do a third one on how to study for the exam (interviews with past students, etc). For now, you can listen to me explain individual logical reasoning questions and reading comprehension passages.

LSAT Logical Reasoning podcast

LSAT Reading Comprehension podcast

Earlier this year, my neighbor Mildred passed away in her mid-90s. She rode the train from Mississippi to Chicago as a young girl in the midst of the Great Migration, and eventually owned her own salon. D and I spent a Friday evening in her company at a funeral parlor contemplating all the changes she saw in her life. She looked beautiful and the funeral home had obviously been unchanged since the 1970s or earlier. I felt very lucky to have the chance to pause in this space outside of time and reflect on Mildred’s time on earth.

Today, we attended a funeral for my neighbor and friend Carol DiPace Greene. Carol and I met attending city meetings, where we both had a great deal to say. We differed in our assessments of local politicians, and we had spoken less since I went to law school, mostly because it was impossible to ever get off the phone with her. She would call to regale me with stories of local corruption, coverups, and send me emails with voluminous attachments from her FOIA requests. She and her friends would joke that I was a young CDPG. This is one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever received, not that Carol was old, herself – she died far too young at 68.

She joined me on the local library board shortly after I was appointed, and I enjoyed being her partner in crime there, and by crime, I mean citizen oversight.

It was always a pleasure to attend meetings with her. She was indefatigable, whipsmart, and a force to be reckoned with even while she was in and out of the hospital fighting cancer. A single mother, Carol and her wonderful son were a fixture in the community, working tirelessly to organize food drives, giveaway events, and all manner of other direct service. One of the world’s truly kind people, Carol never stopped looking for ways to give back, and never stopped fighting for underdogs. I was delighted to meet her son for the first time at her funeral, where he spoke movingly about her life and legacy.

There were at least sixty people there of all ages and backgrounds. I pity young people who only hang out with other people who are exactly like them. When I die, I want to go like Carol: admired by people who have absolutely nothing in common except a commitment to the values and places that connect us.

Spending this time with CDPG, her admirers, friends and family reminded me that what I like most about living where I do is feeling like I can make a difference. When I decided to go to Northwestern for law school, it was in large part because so few people where I live will ever have that opportunity. I am lucky that I live somewhere where I feel like I can use my education and experience and skills to lead and to build things that will help others, rather than feeling powerless or feeling an urge to blame myself or my family for social inequity.

I am lucky that people like Carol showed me how to make a difference in my community and how to live in friendship and solidarity with others.

Rest in power, Carol.

If you have found a deceased person inside a private residence, the first thing to do is to call the police. A police officer should remain with the decedent until a licensed funeral home can arrive onsite. Sadly, in the case of my neighbor, this procedure was not followed. You should insist that police remain onsite until the funeral home arrives. You do not need to remain onsite, but the police ought to so that a chain of custody is established.

Following the removal of the decedent, you may discover that dying is a messy business. This is why death cleaning services exist: bodies release toxic fluids as they begin to decompose. The smell is as upsetting as the visual. It’s also a difficult task if you don’t bring the right equipment. I had no idea what I was doing and I spent 45 minutes crying on my neighbor’s kitchen floor, removing her blood with Clorox wipes (which eventually worked, but were certainly not the best way to approach this).

I did learn that homeowners’ insurance policies will cover the cost of a death cleaning service. However, my neighbor’s son was so distraught by her passing that he was unable to tell me where her insurance information was. He insisted he would take care of the matter, but this was the last thing his mother would have wanted, and so, I took the task into my own hands. I hope that if I live far away from my parents and one of them passes at home alone, that one of their friends would spare me from having to see their remains or walk into the house to the smell.

To recap:

1) Call the police.

2) Call a funeral home.

3) Make the police remain with the decedent until the funeral home arrives.

4) Call the decedent’s homeowner’s insurance company to obtain a claim number before

5) Calling a death cleaning service.

If possible, avoid cleaning up yourself. The smell will haunt me until I die, at unexpected moments when I catch an odor of decay. I was not expecting it to be so overwhelming. I found myself distraught for several days despite seeing the decedent for less than two minutes before her removal. This was a traumatizing experience.

I am sorry if you have found this post because you are in a similar situation. Please be kind to yourself and tip the death cleaning service well: I understand that these are businesses that take advantage of desparate people and pay very little for some of the most difficult work in the world.

In late 2019, my right tear eye suddenly started tearing excessively. I was perplexed, and saw an opthamologist immediately. He told me that I was about to get sick, and that my sinuses were inflamed and this was what was blocking my tear duct. Sure enough, a few days later, I had a bad flu-like illness, and the blockage resolved. I thought that was the end of the matter, until the blockage began recurring. I then saw an ENT who referred me for imaging that revealed some fluid within my maxillary sinus. It was a busy time in my life, so I forgot to circle back for an antibiotic prescription, but I did have tons of allergy testing in the hopes there might be an environmental trigger. The allergy tests revealed nothing. Sinus flushes with over-the-counter items like Flonase and saline sprays mostly resolved the issue, but I continued to experience minor flareups that occasionally started before I became ill with colds and the like, but that mostly seemed to be random. The issue has been nearly exclusively with my right eye. Occasionally, this will happen when I cannot breathe through my right nostril even though it does not feel congested. This often seems to correspond with a feeling of pressure in the sinus below my right eye (the right maxillary sinus).

This spring, my tear duct issue started again, but this time, things continued to get worse. I suspected that I was developing pinkeye from my nasal passages draining into my eyeball, so I called another opthamalogist after a chemical cauterization at my ENT was unsuccessful (and perhaps worsened the issue).  I was diagnosed with dacrocystitis: an infection of the lacrymal sac. This was absolutely disgusting, but fortunately has resolved with antibiotic drops and a nightly ointment.

Picture below is of my eye during an episode that did not require antibiotic treatment – with the help of a decongestant, I was able to expel a pocket of pus from somewhere high up in my right sinus. This was still enough discharge to interfere with my vision and ability to drive – I believe I am a passenger in this photo, which I took because it looked rather dramatic and this has often been difficult to capture.

the author, her visage marred by yellow pus flowing from a blocked tear duct.

It appears that this may be an issue caused by a severely deviated septum, so I may need sinus surgery for that, or surgery to drain the maxillary sinus, or surgery to create a new drainage hole from the lacrymal sac into the nose. If I have surgical intervention in the future, I will update this post. (Update: see bottom of this post for information about my eventual diagnosis of turbinate hypertrophy.)

I cannot tell whether this is a side effect of a dry eye medication I take called Xiidra. I am continuing to experiment at home to see whether the symptoms worsen or improve without the dry eye drops.

Seeing multiple specialists for a severe infection that was causing serious quality of life issues (dacrocystitis was functionally equivalent to having pinkeye, in that my eye crusted shut from discharge, but it was significantly more painful) was not conducive to earning excellent grades in law school, so between this and a family issue I was able to work with my university to arrange for a medical leave. This is an unexpected silver lining to these troubles with my eye, and I think it is worth documenting since I know many of my readers are considering law school and may not know that leaves of absence are possible.

I am delighted that Northwestern has given me this unexpected gift of time. I did myself a huge disservice by leaving my last job on a Friday and starting law school orientation programs the following Monday, and I truly encourage my students to take some time to rest and actually make a transition. I thought when I began law school that it would be an easy transition, since I had been working remotely for nearly two years, and would be resuming school (my new job!) from the same office. I had the routines, I had the space, and I desperately needed the paycheck and there was no way to take a real vacation with the COVID situation unfolding. Having this second chance to take a break before beginning school is one of the most wonderful things that has ever happened in my life. For the first time in years I have some breathing room to deal with nagging medical issues, establish healthy routines, organize my house, execute some gardening projects, etc. I also look forward to spending time with my family. At the suggestion of a mentor, I started a private course in classical grammar and composition via the Feltre School. My attention span is slowly returning and I feel that studying literature and philosophy has been morally as well as intellectually instructive.

I look forward to returning this summer to Accenture, which has again proven to be a tremendously accommodating place to work. I’m not sure I would have traded my summer internship there for this time off, but fortunately, I didn’t have to. With my summer legal employment secure, my focus is on finalizing a few B2B LSAT services offerings and finalizing a few new products for our existing B2C client base. I have a few writing projects (both LSAT related and not) and I hope to onboard a full-time operations manager before I return to school this fall. I have also entered into a business partnership with a wonderful person who I expect to be a lifelong friend, and another new friend and I are negotiating a merger.

My LSAT tutoring business continues to thrive, and has provided a much-needed safety net during this time off. Since launching my company last June, I have had the good fortune every day of feeling aligned with my higher purpose and gifts, as witnessed by the continued blessings that flow into my life from the incredible people that I have met through teaching. My LSAT students continue to include the most inspiring and accomplished people that I could ever hope to meet. Somehow, my world continues to expand in unexpected and wonderful ways, despite the outside forces that have somewhat narrowed my physical orbit this past year. I feel that I am doing less and achieving more, and I couldn’t be happier about it. This feeling of purposeful alignment continued to increase after I began my studies at Northwestern. I have come back into contact with people from my past who I had lost touch with who also have connections to Northwestern, and I have met people who I have never crossed paths with, but who I still feel deep connection with and affinity for. I am so happy to be joining the legal profession and to have the opportunity to further my education in an environment that is such a strong match for who I am.

As the trees outside my window begin to bloom (and block my tear ducts, probably), I can’t help but think back on this time last year, when I was on the brink of turning 32 and had no idea of the incredible things that were about to unfold. If my 34th year on earth is even half as wonderful as this one was, I think I will have enough sweet memories to treasure for a lifetime. Thank you, readers, for your continuing interest in my life.

To anyone finding this because of a tear duct issue, I hope that you find relief and will comment here about your experiences so that we can learn from one another.

UPDATE, 10/7/2021: Nearly two years after my tear duct first became blocked, I sought a third opinion from an ENT and was diagnosed with hypertrophy of a nasal turbinate. Apparently, this can be a complication from a deviated septum: the turbinates opposite the deviation will overcompensate for congestion caused in the other nostril. I continue to treat myself with steroid and other nasal sprays, but it appears increasingly likely that I will need surgery to resolve the issue. Cessation of Xiidra did not impact whether or not the duct became blocked. Despite my mother’s instincts, this issue was not caused by vision correction surgery. Weekly acupuncture probably extended the amount of time that I was able to deal with the issue without surgical intervention.

UPDATE 11/13/2021: I have scheduled a septoplasty and turbinate reduction during my upcoming winter break.

At some point during my never-ending job search, I started browsing the LawSchoolNumbers website and pieced together that I seemed to have a pretty strong shot at admission at many good law schools if I got a high enough LSAT score. But I didn’t sign up for the LSAT because I finally got an amazing job at Accenture in 2018.

I loved working at Accenture, and records management was a good field to work in, but the operational side of the work was the wrong fit. I spent a long time getting my paperwork in order to qualify for the PMP exam (a longtime goal!) and realized I didn’t want to take the test because I didn’t like project management. For many years I leaned into a career path that fit my skills, but there were other parts of myself that I was not developing. At the end of the day, operational jobs stress me out because I much prefer the delineation and end of distinct projects. I noticed that attorneys had a way of muscling in on the more interesting aspects of the records management field, and eventually realized that many people I like and respect (and whose jobs I think I’d enjoy doing) graduated from Northwestern University, and decided based on their American Bar Association annual reports that the employment and income statistics for the past few years of their graduating classes made it look like a pretty reasonable investment considering my personal situation.

When I met a librarian-turned-lawyer who was working as an external consultant on our records schedule refresh, I began to seriously wonder whether that kind of work might be a better fit for me. I noticed that the work lawyers were doing at Accenture seemed better-suited for me than work on the consulting side of the business. So I signed up to take the LSAT, thinking I would go to school in the fall of 2021. I studied for three months, and got a 177 (not quite Elle Woods, but I’m very sure that I only missed two questions, which on a normal test, would be a 180 – they dropped 1/4 of the questions to offer the test remotely during coronavirus, and usually a perfect score is a -3).

Shortly after I took the test, law schools started announcing that they’d be fully online this fall. So I expected movement off of waitlists at top schools, since rumor has it that 20% of Harvard’s incoming class deferred. I emailed a few schools and confirmed that they were still considering applications, and ended up with some great offers to consider by early July.

I cannot put into words how cool it is that I had the option to go to some of the best schools in the country despite my 2.8 undergraduate GPA. It is incredible that this test has opened so many doors for me. I feel some regret about not applying in the fall to see what is possible with my numbers. There are not many people in the country with scores like this, and even fewer with ridiculous scores and low GPAs like mine. I wish I were leaving more data for the people behind me. But coronavirus has made me the luckiest person alive: I applied to Northwestern in June, was admitted within two weeks, and received a significant scholarship shortly thereafter.

Haters will say it’s because I’m a minority, but I’m very proud that my parents came to this country and made a good life for themselves. Self-identifying as “white European” without noting that I am Latina erases their achievements. I will never stop checking the “Hispanic” box. I’m proud of who I am and where I come from. I think it’s wack that poor white and Asian people likely don’t get the same benefits when their applications are considered, and there are things about affirmative action that I think are condescending, but I can’t do anything about that. I know other “underrepresented minorities” with LSAT scores and GPAs higher than mine who didn’t get into these schools. And I know white people with worse stats who got in. I really believe that I got in because of my score and my work experience and my convincing explanation of the many factors at play with that GPA, and that the scholarship money was 100% because I had a solid track record at Accenture.

(Don’t @ me. Haters, doubters, and people applying to law school who want to see a winning application can email me at anita @ anitalife dot com to see what a dope resume looks like and then tell me with a straight face I got in because I’m a minority.)

It was hard to leave Accenture. It was best job I have ever had, it was everything I wanted, and everyone on my team was great. The Chicago Association of Records Managers and Administrators (ARMA) chapter is the best professional association I’ve ever been part of. I saw lots of opportunities in the field, and on a day-to-day basis I was pretty satisfied at work.

Choosing a law school was even more difficult than leaving Accenture. I had the opportunity to go to Georgetown, Northwestern, or Notre Dame. Georgetown was unfortunately ruled out because the timing was not right for us to make a move back to the east coast. Notre Dame was even more difficult to turn down, and I think I only did because my partner made a spreadsheet of my living and commuting expenses in South Bend and calculated the exact amount of money I’d need at Northwestern for the total cost of attendance at both to be equivalent. When Northwestern upped their scholarship offer to almost precisely that number (I think they came in a little higher to be polite), the choice was made: I couldn’t turn down the better potential job outcomes at Northwestern, which has terrific BigLaw placement.

This was honestly one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made in my life. I felt sad about changing course because I was so excited to go to Notre Dame, and I feel unbelievably fortunate to have had the opportunity to agonize about these two wonderful choices. It is a beautiful place with a seemingly good culture. I had great impressions from all of my interactions with the school. They were so attentive about even the smallest details. For example, the hold music was a loop of Gregorian chants. The atmosphere encouraged finding the sacred in the mundane and I would have loved to study law in the context of a 2,000 year-old tradition. It hurt my soul to turn away from this path and I will probably go to my grave wondering about this road not taken. It is a magical and special place and I am sure that I would have become a better person by going there.

I wish I could live twice on this earth and spend one of those lifetimes at Notre Dame, but I have the most wonderful partner in the world and we have spent too much time apart already. There is something about Notre Dame that stirs the heart and the soul, but Northwestern is wonderful in different ways. I’ve been fortunate to meet many Northwestern alumni on my journey and they have been generous (perhaps to a fault) with their time and advice. I couldn’t be more pleased with the community I have found here already.

I feel incredibly privileged to be able to leave a stable and fulfilling job during a pandemic to strive for more in my life, and to have three years of learning and discovery ahead. I am especially grateful to my friends Kristen and Alise for always pushing me and to my wonderful partner and family for their support and faith in me.

To all my colleagues and friends at Accenture, I look forward to staying in touch and hopefully crossing paths again professionally in the not-too-distant future. Special thanks go to the Jewish Employee Resource Group for making this such a fun and supportive place to work. I am proud of the work we did together, and I truly regret leaving just as my personal life was settling down enough for me to consider a leadership role. JERG will always have a special place in my heart and I encourage everyone at Accenture to take advantage of the employee resource group infrastructure.

Also, I have an LSAT tutoring business now. Please tell any aspiring law students in your life about elleSAT.

I definitely did not enjoy the surgery. Here is what happens:

– You take an anti-anxiety drug in the waiting area (where are amazing homemade cookies c/o the office’s great surgical coordinator)

– The staff dose you with numbing eyedrops

– You lie on a table after choosing a selection of plush animals to squeeze.

– They put a ring over your eyeball to stop you from blinking, then direct you to look up at the laser while they push down on your eyeball. You don’t really see anything and after you focus you just have to hold your eye still. If you close your eyes and push on them with your fists, that’s kind of what it’s like, but there is also a kind of vague smell of something burning. I don’t think I had enough numbing drops in my left eye and I could definitely feel something in my eye when they did it, which was uncomfortable, and if it weren’t for that burning smell I think the pain was probably similar to the stinging from the drops when they dilate your eyes. It was all over very quickly, though.

I had my surgery on 6/30 and I can see pretty reliably well now (as of July 17), definitely at least as clearly as I did with glasses, although I am still having some trouble focusing and especially switching between near and distance vision. It can be pretty uncomfortable if your eyes dry out – it feels like maybe a contact lens has folded up and migrated to the itchy corner of your eye when it’s really bad, and when it’s moderately bad, it feels like you have your contacts in after a really long day.

I’m also surprised that lately, my eyes have been super dry when I first wake up – this wasn’t the case at first after the surgery, so I’m hoping that clears up.

I definitely have some issues with halos in low-light environments, but I have no reason to think that this won’t continue to improve. It seems like all my friends had the same initial issues and are now enjoying pretty great results, so I’m tentatively pleased with the results.

Overall, it has been weird, slightly (if briefly) painful, kind of annoying, and tentatively worth it, I really love being able to wear cheap sunglasses and see clearly at the pool. I expect that I will really like it when I do some overnight bike trips later this year.

UPDATE 8/31/2017: my right eye still gets fuzzy if I’ve been awake too long, but I am using fewer drops and overall things are still quite good and slightly better than with glasses. I would expect to spend about $20/week on eyedrops for the first 2 months. Happily, I’ve discovered that the Costco near me sells Systane Ultra drops in a 3-pack for $20. If you don’t see them at your Costco ask at the pharmacy counter, sometimes they are stored off the floor.

UPDATE 2019: my optometrist told me that it isn’t normal to use eyedrops that much and confirmed that I had dry eye after LASIK. I have been on prescription eyedrops (xiidra) for over a year and now I use eyedrops (Systane Complete, a new product recommended by optometrist) once or twice a day (sometimes more often if I am at my computer for too long). I am still very pleased with the outcome. I see better than I did with glasses and contacts and my eyes are more comfortable than they were when I wore contacts. I have gone 3-4 days at a time without using the xiidra too which makes me think that maybe the improvement is permanent.

I don’t want to share pictures until I’ve taken some of my own – I want to make an earnest effort not to have my address show up TOO easily on Google – but I LOVE the house. The only thing that could make it better was if the lot was just a touch bigger and had a garage where I could set up a woodworking space….but I guess the trade off is less yardwork, and for now, there’s a community art space with equipment not far from the house….

I am looking forward to getting involved in a community where I know I won’t be priced out, where I know my house won’t be sold from under me, and where there is so much potential. I’ve loved the neighborhood since I spent a year working for PGCMLS at their Hyattsville branch, and it’s getting better all the time: I’m SO thrilled that I was able to buy my house, which is practically ON the Northeast Branch Trail of the Anacostia Tributary System, right before the opening of the connection between Benning Road and the Bladensburg Waterfront Park.

Here are some things I’ve already done:

– Sign up for the waiting list at the PG Pool

– Sign up for WABA’s PG action group

– Sign up for updates about backyard poultry ordinances

– Scope out my local Bikram studio

– Emailed the Hyattsville Library Friends about volunteering

I’m so happy to be finally accomplishing one of my major life goals, and to be moving back to a neighborhood where I feel so at home. This month has been so intense and for the first time in memory (possibly ever?) I have felt like my life is an independently moving THING and I’m just along for the ride. This is a HUGE, LIFE-ALTERING CHANGE, and I’m optimistic that the routines I’ve been working on for the past year are going to support me in this transition. It is so exciting to feel like everything I’ve worked for for the past 10 years are finally paying off. Speaking of 10 years….OMG, as soon as I close on the house (9/30, knock on wood) I have to get back in gear planning my ten-year high school reunion!!!! It never ends! (BUY TICKETS! TELL YOUR FRIENDS.)

More posts soon!

I would be really happy to see friends there! The other stories are pretty great too.