In the summer in Los Angeles, electricity runs through the pavement. It pulls surfers to the beach, couples to the gardens of Griffith Observatory, families to the picnic grills and cool grass at Hollenbeck Park. I felt it this summer. On a few bright Sunday mornings, I brought crates of records to a rooftop restaurant to spin for the brunch crowd. I sweated through long, late shifts at the bar where I worked, then watched my friends make music in shifty, cobbled-together spaces. I visited Vicente Pedraza, the man who once ran the influential cumbia sonidera label Discos Barba Azul, at his Santee Alley stall. And Arshia Haq, who, visited Pakistan and came back to L.A. with her own deeply spiritual recordings of Sufi music. (Both allowed me to share their stories in L.A. Weekly.) I brought some of my favorite musicians together in the basement of a restaurant in Chinatown for one transcendent night of music. We stood in the back alley between sets, across from the restaurant cooks taking their breaks, smoking their cigarettes, and talked about our plans.

The news this summer was dire. We watched young people gather under a banner of hate in Charlottesville, then listened with dismay as our president validated them. Closer to home, L.A.’s neighborhoods boiled over with anxiety about displacement and gentrification. Our city’s homelessness crisis seemed worse than ever. It became clear that DACA, the federal program that allows those who entered the U.S. as children to go to school and work without fear of deportation, was the President’s latest target, with 100,000 of our Angeleno neighbors in the crosshairs. The freedom of a Los Angeles summer is intoxicating, but I start school at Loyola with profound excitement — the feeling that I’ll gain an education that will help me do my part to make this city even more just, more equal, more electric.

Not too long after I turned 22, I decided to go to law school.

That was seven years ago.

Back then, I had just graduated from Seattle University with a degree in English, and all I knew was I wanted to write. I had worked as the news editor at the school paper, interned at the local alt-weekly, wrote papers about American economic history, and blogged about politics. I thought I was off to a good start.

But I had also fallen in love with Seattle, and I felt certain I wanted to be a part of the city in a meaningful way. I knew a couple of lawyers, and I figured law school was the way to do that. If nothing else, it would give me plenty to write about.

In the intervening seven years, I learned that things rarely turn out the way you plan.

Seven years ago, I was working at a book store in Seattle and plotting my future. One night after work, I got a text from a friend who told me he could get me a job in New York City. One week later, I was on an airplane. Who could pass up a writing gig in the cultural capital of the world?

Things went from there. I made an adventure out of my 20s. I ended up working in radio in New York for a few years. As part of the job, I spent much of my time in cities like Shreveport, Yakima, and Utica teaching radio DJs how to blog. Later, I learned how to DJ myself, and gigged around the city; I worked as a bike messenger; I worked in bars; I played in a band. I got back to writing, which will always be important to me — it’s the way I find my bearings in the world — and when I moved to L.A. a couple years ago, I got to know the city by freelance writing about the local music scene.

L.A. reminds me of everything I loved about Seattle. It’s a big, complicated, strange city, a city of shiny dreams and stubborn struggles; of Hollywood studios and working class neighborhoods; of Kendrick Lamar and Raymond Chandler; of cumbia blasting from backyard parties and experimental music emanating from warehouse art spaces.

As I became absorbed in this city I was reminded of my original desire to be a useful part of something bigger than myself. I don’t regret a single weird minute of my ‘20s. But I couldn’t be more ready for what’s next.

The phrase “So tell me a little bit about yourself” has always given me minor heart palpitations. What kind of personality do I have? Are those actually my interests? What have I even accomplished? I live with myself 24 hours a day, yet get thrown into a panic as if I don’t even know my last name (did you read that as Carrie Underwood?). So, although I’ll have second-guessed this introduction of myself 32 times by the time I am finished writing, I will try my best to “tell you a little bit about myself” without giving up.

I graduated in December of 2016 from my undergraduate university with a B.A. in Political Science and minors in English and History (anything scientific gives me more heart palpitations than introductions, so just know you are my inspiration if you are surviving or have survived a B.S.) and was heavily involved in my sorority. While an undergraduate, I completed a legislative internship in a Congressional office in D.C., which, although an amazing experience, showed me that a career path in politics was not completely for me. After I graduated, I worked for the public school district in my hometown of Elk Grove, CA for the 8 months before law school started.

Although I have a background in both education and politics, as a law student I have found that I am most interested in Consumer Law. This may change (I am only a 1L), but I do believe that I will ultimately end up in the field of litigation even though my Criminal Law class is incredibly compelling. Something I have already realized about law school is that even if you are focused on one area of law, all of the areas are so engaging and expansive that it is hard not to be interested in all of the fields.

On the non-legal side of my life (which still exists, though barely), I enjoy spending my time reading, watching television, clothes shopping, and trying new foods. All of those interests seem so unoriginal, I wish I could tell you that I am a certified sky-diver, but I’ll give an accurate representation of myself. I cannot survive without 2-4 cups of coffee a day, I hate caramel, I will not choose between being a cat-person or a dog-person, and I highly recommend naps.

Most importantly, I am so excited that I will have the opportunity to share little pieces of my life here! I think that it is incredibly important to know what you are getting yourself into when you commit to law school, so I will try my best to accurately illuminate the details of law school life over the next year.