Two weeks to go.

I can’t help but feel that “getting admitted” is an appropriate a euphemism for becoming a fully-fledged solicitor as “going to the bar” is for becoming a barrister.

The latter is perched to enter a world of long, boozy, Friday lunches with their work phones turned off.

The former … well if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you have some idea of the nuthouse to which I’m about to be granted permanent residency.

To this end, I’ve found two misguided souls to attest to my good character, nabbed a wig from a friendly barrister for my admittor to wear to the ceremony and compiled a beautifully formatted list of my tram fines and parking tickets for the Supreme Court’s perusal.

On that note, buggered if I can find the government agency who ticks kids off for not wearing bike helmets.

I know I’ve had a few of those – short-back-and-sides coppers don’t appreciate the pain and suffering that results from bike helmets on wet, curly hair.

I’m quite excited. Not just for the new business card and email signature, and farewelling the hassle of explaining at parties that I don’t clip newspaper articles for a living.

I’m hoping the crystallisation of legal knowledge that didn’t really happen upon my last exam, graduation or commencement of articled clerkship will strike on the big day.

The befuddled mist that currently blankets mere equities, put and call options and existing use rights will dissipate in a big bang on signing the roll …

Here’s hoping.

It’ll be nice just to have made it, to have something to report when I return on Christmas Eve to the local pub of my hometown and am questioned by old school friends who years ago completed their apprenticeships … established their own businesses … popped out twins.

Traditionally, you ask your allocated principal to move your admission. However, given the partner to whom I’m articled hasn’t said a word to me since he signed his initial affidavit, I wasn’t so inclined.

I thought about asking Ned, the boy who got me through law school with cups of tea in the wee hours, artful diagrams explaining criminal procedure and frantic rushes to the exam room each time I forgot my student card, but he said I should ask someone at the Firm.

So, I asked one of the senior associates that I will be working under this year in planning and environment. I only met her a few weeks ago when we worked on a big fat discovery together and we get along great.

I think I may have found a kindred spirit – she plays Cat Power softly in her office, has a stash of chai teabags and ginger cookies in her credenza, has developed herself a niche practice area in water law that she floats her boat on (so to speak), and wafts unaffected throughout the life at the Firm like the proverbial duck.

Perhaps it won’t be a life of solitary confinement?

Vicki