This is Part III of the series , where I will discuss my first year and a half in law school.  Check out Part I  and Part II to get the full story.

The first year of law school was a blast.  There was drinking involved, of course, but it was so exciting and I got wrapped up in the rush of being in such an honorable place.  The fact that you are in law school – even if you don’t graduate, even if you are in the bottom of your class – impresses people.  I became proud of myself and began to believe that this was the second chance I had been working toward my whole life.

In my first year, I did pretty well.  I was in the top 11% of my class.  I got elected to represent my class in the Student Bar Association (the equivalent of Student Government on the law school level) as a 1L Representative (1L = first year law school student).  I got an internship with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after just one semester of classes (which is a huge deal, most students don’t get internships until sometime during their second year).   I was a finalist in a 1L mock trial competition.  I made 2 great friends who are still close to me today. I did so many things right.

Side note: During my internship with the EEOC I worked on the most fascinating case I have ever read about to date.  We fought for freedom for mentally disabled adult men being housed as slaves and working for a turkey farmer.  Read about it here.

For the most part, I was not drinking heavily during that first year.  I went out a couple nights and had more than I should have, but it was balanced.  I cared so much about my studies at that time and I really wanted to do a good job for myself. I was so motivated and wouldn’t let anything stand in my way.  I wish, I wish, I wish I could have kept that state of mind.

The summer after my 1L year was one for the books.  During the first half, I worked at a paid internship with a local criminal defense firm in the mornings and attended classes to get a few extra hours in the evenings.  I took Oil and Gas Law (big deal in Texas) and Marital Property (very important subject for me, see my last post).   The weeks flew by, and I was off to my first law school study abroad in Croatia to study Intellectual Property in the European Union.

Croatia was a real turning point with my substance abuse issues, but I want to take a detour and share the funny anecdote which landed me my summer criminal defense internship.  As mentioned above, I got an internship with the EEOC during the winter of my 1L year.  That organization was not my first choice though.  I went through the application process to be an intern in the Dallas County Family Violence court; a position which I was thrilled about and initially believed would be my place of employment after graduation.  I went through the application process and disclosed I had been arrested for a DWI in Dallas County, and it wasn’t a deal breaker.  I was scheduled to go for my third interview (the in person one which would have resulted in a formal offer) when I got a phone call from the administrator.  She informed me that I was no longer going to be considered a candidate because I failed the background check.  I asked her for details (I previously disclosed my DWI so I didn’t understand what the issue could be), and she transferred me to a court clerk who stated that I had a warrant IN DALLAS COUNTY for failure to appear.  If I arrived at the court house, they would be able to detain me for a hearing with a judge.  I was furious and humiliated.  Remember, prior to my first DWI I had barely gotten a speeding ticket – not passing a background check was something that I had never experienced and never anticipated up to that point in life.

 

So, I emailed my attorney with all caps demanding to know why I had a warrant.  He put the blame on his paralegal for failing to calendar the docket for my court date and apologized profusely.  Even though I was livid, I realize mistakes happen, so I forgave him…and jokingly told him he owed me an internship because he cost me mine.  Four days later, he called and confirmed the firm would be happy to have me as a paid intern the following summer.   Every time I relayed that story throughout law school, people would snicker and tell me how awesome it was.  I didn’t hide my arrest and something great even came out of it.  Sobriety would have been a better result, but I didn’t think of it that way then.

 

Now, onto Croatia.  I picked this trip on a whim.  I was never interested in traveling to the Balkan region, nor did I have a penchant for intellectual property.  The trip was the only one that allowed me to complete my summer courses, work, and travel.  It fit the schedule, it was (somewhat) affordable, and I wanted to get out of the country.  I think the only way to tell the story about Croatia is to start from the beginning.

 

First, I planned to fly into Madrid and spend 2 days there, then ride the train over to Barcelona for an additional night.  I love Spain, I speak Spanish, and I traveled there two times prior to this trip.  I just needed some Sangria and flamenco to forget the world.  While in Spain, I didn’t get too crazy.  I was alone, and I spent most of my time walking around, eating, drinking (but not over the top), and meeting locals who I would join at local pubs or discos later in the evening.  It was a tame three nights.  When it was time to leave, I was sad.  I had just a taste of the country that I loved so dearly, and I was headed to a spot I knew absolutely nothing about to study a topic that didn’t excite me.

I arrived in Croatia a little late. I checked into the dorm and I was immediately disappointed.  The accommodations had been advertised as a place which had a café, air conditioning, a computer lab, and was within walking distance to major attractions.  It was none of those things.  The dorm was small and dirty, and equipped with two twin beds and nothing else.  There was a common bathroom for the entire floor (read: all students, regardless of gender) for bathing and everything else that happens in bathrooms.  The “computer lab” was a sweltering little closet with 4 extremely old model PCs running on Windows 95.  There was a café, but it was of course not open for summer.  The only things within walking distance were a TINY coffee shop (which literally only sold coffee) and a 24 hour bakery. For everything else, we had to take the bus, which stopped running around 9:45pm.  Later, I would come to learn that Rijeka is simply a miserable city, and there were other extremely exciting destinations in Croatia that offered more of what I had expected, but I would not be seeing any of those other places.

My roommate was a young woman originally from Jamaica who had a huge chip on her shoulder.  See, at this time, we were just beginning to enter the #blacklivesmatter era, and Croatia was not exactly the place to protest.  There are no black people in Rijeka.  In fact, people did not even attempt to hide their stares at my friend.  It wasn’t out of hate or disgust, but rather, they were fascinated.  They had never seen a black person in real life.  People would take photos, tell her she was pretty, smile, or just look at her and take it all in.  Rather than seize this and realize it is a great opportunity to show them that being black is just as ordinary as being white, she got angry and took offense to the people looking at her.  She yelled at a man on a bus when he asked her to move away from the door so he could exit.  She gave menacing glances to the people looking at her and cussed at them under her breath (or audibly, as the trip went on).  Thankfully, she usually just retreated to the dorm room after classes and I was able to venture out on my own.

 

Speaking of on my own, one thing that particularly bothered me about this trip was that four students from my university were also there.  Can you imagine the chances?  The trip was open to any law student at any level across the United States.  35 people attended – and 5 of them happened to be from Fort Worth, Texas (specifically from Texas A&M University School of Law).  The reason this bothered me was that even though I was in their class, from their school, and knew them all personally, I was excluded from their daily activities in Croatia.  I was never invited to go see the old observatory, go to the downtown pizza restaurant, hang out in the little pub, go shopping, take a hike at the waterfall…they just went on their own.  I tried to justify it and say it didn’t matter since it’s not like we planned to come to the same place…but it did matter!  I was so depressed about not having anyone to hang out with.  I traveled alone, and I expected to be alone because I didn’t know anyone.  Despite my predetermined solitude, I was not ready to have familiar faces next to me who would completely reject me.  Even writing this, I feel whiny and sensitive.  Back then, I felt whiny and sensitive.  Bottom line, I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.  If you have read my previous posts, you know what this means.

I was drunk every single night in Croatia.

There is not much to do in a small city like that, so I found the city center to be a daily destination where I could fill up on white wine and read under the sun.  I tried researching new places to see, but nothing caught my attention.  I would drink, argue online with the guy I was dating at the time (who never wanted me to travel in the first place because he didn’t trust me), then try to find something to do late into the night.  Eventually, the guy and I broke it off, and I immediately internalized the pain by having a summer fling.  One of the waiters at the café, Ivica, seemed to be the best choice.  He helped me purchase hashish for one of my peers on the trip, and we had been messaging here and there.  We stayed together a few times, and it was absolutely understood by both of us that it would not be a long lasting thing.

One of the most interesting evenings I had in Croatia was with a man about 30 years my senior.  I don’t remember his name, but I will never forget him.  As you remember, I am an aficionado of hookah (or shisha, nargilah, whatever you would like to call it) and I always try to find a place to smoke when I travel.  In Croatia, I found a spot about 30 minutes away in a province called Opatija.  I planned my night, invited the 4 kids from law school (who declined) and got dressed and excited.  When I arrived, I noticed the destination was actually a hotel with a small lounge on the first floor which offered the pipes.  I expected them to be horrible (and they were) but the ambiance was incredible.  Opatija is situated on a somewhat steep mountain, and it overlooks the sea.  There are beautiful colors adorning every building, and driving there means following winding, narrow roads.  Every taxi driver is skilled at doing this in Croatia, but I was blown away.  Coming from Texas, where 8 lane highways and huge pickups are the norm, I felt like I was in a cartoon of sorts.

 

As I sat and puffed on my orange shisha, a man approached me from the interior of the hotel.  He asked me something in Croatian, and when he realized I didn’t speak it, he said, “Are you enjoying your evening?”  His voice was eloquent and his English was perfect.  After he disclosed that he owned the hotel (which I believed based on the way he spoke with the hotel employees) I invited him to join me.  That night, we had a three hour conversation about traveling, life, dreams and love.  He was a spiritual man and he traveled to India quite a bit to get in touch with his inner self.  His wife left him for another man in Croatia, so he lived at the hotel he owned with his daughter and had, from what I could tell, an outstanding life.  After our chat, he offered to take me home (which I welcomed since I was strapped for cash nearly the entire trip).  He passed me his phone number and said he would love to see me again.  I wanted to see him too, but unfortunately it would never come to pass.

 

Flash forward 24 hours. I had very little food in my system, and I got unbelievably drunk in the city center (so much so that various waiters refused to serve me).  I left when it got dark and hailed a cab.  My memory is a little fuzzy, but I recall following a man who I believed was a taxi driver.  He led me into a dark alley and you can imagine what happened.  I don’t want anyone to pity me, but I think there are a lot of confusing situations for people, especially women, when they drink a lot.  It is hard on men to be able to tell if a woman consents if she has been drinking.  What if you have been out a few times but you thought the relationship was heading that way?  What if she has been all over you all night beginning before she was drinking?  What if you don’t realize how drunk she is?  There are so many what ifs.  Clearly, if you don’t know a woman, you all aren’t dating, and she is obviously drunk, then you are really F^#$#&d up for trying to hook up with her.  But there are just so many things that blur the lines.  This is coming from a woman who has been too drunk to consciously consent far too many times.  I don’t feel sorry for myself and I don’t believe those men thought they were doing something wrong or had a criminal intent.  I probably made them believe that I wanted it.  With so much practice, I am skilled at looking and acting quite sober when I am actually three sheets to the wind.  So what am I trying to say here?  Just don’t get messed up around strangers.  If you don’t have a significant other who will take care of you, then get some annoying girlfriends who force you to leave the party when you’ve had too much.  The people I see drunk out of their minds at parties are usually the ones who have no one looking after them – and they probably started drinking because they were lonely in the first place.  What a horrible situation to be in.

 

After the incident in the alley, I began to cry.  I cried like I meant it, sobbing and screaming, until someone came out on the balcony in the alley.  She told me to leave the alley because it was dangerous.  I didn’t answer, I just kept crying.  She said she was coming down.  I tried to run to get away from her, because I didn’t want to tell her what happened.  She found me around the corner at the bus stop and I gave her enough of the story that she pieced together what was missing.  She said I had to go to the police, which I didn’t want to do, but she really gave me no choice and called them for me.

For the rest of the trip, I had to stay at the home of the Croatian guide who assisted our group.  I just slept.  I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere, see my friends, use the phone, nothing.  I was miserable.  The only time I was allowed to leave was to visit the investigators and the judge. I wanted to fly to Portugal, where I had a dear friend waiting to see me.  I wasn’t allowed to go, of course, and that made me even more frustrated.  I convinced my parents to cut the trip short and pay to change my ticket.  Within three days of this event, I was a plane back to the states, feeling like a drunk fool once again.

 

Thanks for reading my lovelies. I can’t wait to share the next chapter of my journey with you.