Non-Live Live Blogging the Bar Exam: Day 1, Afternoon

1:15pm. They fail to mention that we will not have access to the testing hall during the lunch break. But that's where the bathrooms are. That's. Where. The. Bathrooms. Are.

1:20pm. Doors open. There are girls that are racing to the can. I mean throwing-toddlers-overboard pushing people out of the way to be first in line. So glad my gender can pee in under 20 seconds.

1:30pm. My deskmate comes back at the last minute. For a second there I thought she chickened out after the morning session. [Editor's note: Turns out about 20 people did in fact bail.]

1:31pm. The head proctor announces that someone complained of a beeping coming from sections 21 or 22. We can't start until that's resolved. And that's the sound of a thousand law students hating you.

1:32pm. This time I race through filling in the identification bubbles. I've learned my lesson. Don't follow along with the proctor when it's obvious what to do. Yeah, I was that kid in 7th grade. Now look where I am -- a lawyer!

3:15pm. It's halfway through the afternoon session. Full bladder. It's now or never I suppose. How do I do this? I have to raise my hand to signal the proctor to come over to me, but I don't want to waste anytime. I can squeeze out another question while I'm waiting. Ooh... "squeeze" is so the wrong word to think right now. But I can't do that with one hand in the air. Maybe if I sort of flutter my arm every once in a while she'll notice, and I can still sort of take the test. Such a pointless dilemma.

3:30pm. Hmm... mechanical pencil girl seems to be struggling a bit with the real pencil. Sucka.

3:45pm. HOLY CRAP. Someone just turned in their exam. That's a full hour ahead of schedule.

3:50pm. Ok. Another girl just got up. I think it's the same one who left early this morning. I ain't impressed, honey. Ok. Maybe a little bit.

4:00pm. Where the hell is everyone going? Either this is the easiest test in the world or the hardest. I can't tell. They all seem to have that vague dazed-sort-of-happy-but-really-miserable-what-have-I-done look on their faces. But every law student has that look on their face. Thank you! I'm here all night.

4:40pm. I changed two answers. [Editor's note: I had to check this when I got home. Sure enough, neither my first guess nor my second guess were correct. Lovely.]

5:00pm. I'm on the T [the subway] home, and these two sort of pudgy ladies sit next to me, and pull out today's sudoku. They suck at it. Yeah, I'm a major sudoku snob. Comes with being really awesome at it. Note to self: Lead with this fact at next week's speeddating event.

5:10pm. Pudgy lady #1 just complained about sand in her lungs... from last Saturday. It's Wednesday today.

5:15pm. #1 again. She shows off her new flip-flops to pudgy lady #2. Apparently they are not nice enough for "going out," but they are nice enough to "wear to work." What?

5:20pm. Pudgy lady #2 recounts a story of a sweaty man who sat down next to her on the T last week. It had been a really hot day. Summer and all. She was grossed out by it. Really? Because the snowstorm in your hair (and your odor, in which you have no privacy right but I wish you did) gives you license to criticize?

5:21pm. Wow. I'm really judgmental today.

5:25pm. Woman gets on at the Harvard stop. She pulls out Anne Enright's Man Booker prize winning novel The Gathering. Touche, Harvard.

Non-Live Live Blogging the Bar Exam: Day 1, Morning.

[Times are approximate. What do you want? We're not allowed to use computers for the bar exam.]

4:00am. I wake up because I have to pee. And because I'm scared. Not a good sign.

5:55am. Still awake. My alarm is set for 6am. I switch it to 6:10am. I was going to snooze once anyway.

6:10am. Didn't sleep anyway. Great. I only got 4 hours of sleep before the most important test of my life.

7:00am. Stuffing myself with carbs because I don't know how long it will be before I eat again. I buckle and have a sip of coffee. I hope I don't have to pee during the exam.

7:45am. I realize that the hoodie I brought for layering in case the room is cold is actually prohibited because of the potential for covering my head. Luckily I have another shirt in my car. I wonder how strict they're going to be about the dumb rules.

8:15am. Hmm... We did a practice run a month ago, but I decided to take a different path from the subway to the test site. Not smart. Oh, good, he looks like he knows where he's going.

8:20am. Dude, I'm going to the same place you are. I'm not sure why you're running ahead faster than me.

8:30am. Big crowd. No one's been let in yet even though 8:30 is the start time. We were advised to arrive early to be able to use the bathrooms before they start spouting the same standardized test instructions mantra we all know and love. I know the bathrooms are tiny in this place. This'll be interesting.

8:35am. I'm in Section 15. Crap. I'm equidistant from the two bathrooms. This means I'll have to use a maximum amount of time if I need to take a break in the middle of the exam. You win this time people with last names that start with Z or A.

8:40am. Ever since Scantron sheets have required filling in the "empty bubble" below every space you don't use for your name (my full name has very few letters in it), I've had to spend just as much time as everyone else filling those things out. The proctors should know that. Why are they speeding through the longest portion of the intro? STRESS.

8:50am. Where do proctors come from? They're always old. And they always use analog clocks. That's not a good combination for timed tests.

9:00am. Wow. Those girls just got busted for trying to use mechanical pencils. Those were specifically prohibited. I guess they are taking the dumb rules seriously.

9:07am. Begin! Hmm... question 1... uh... um... ok, that wasn't so bad.

9:09am. Question 2... skip.

9:11am. Question 3... skip.

9:13am. Question 4... ... ... crap.

10:30am. This is way harder than Bar/Bri. And the characters in the questions don't have cool names like Poteet.

10:46am. There are some really attractive people in here. Not too shabby Massachusetts. Not too shabby.

11:15am. 45 minutes to go in this morning session and someone already finished. Gunner. I hate you.

12:07pm. End of session 1. Time to cry. And for lunch. And to pee. Not necessarily in that order.

It's Time.

Tomorrow most people start their bar exams. Mass starts Wednesday, so I still have a day. I'm planning on getting a haircut and watching Batman tomorrow, to try and relax. I haven't slept well in weeks. I don't feel ready. I know there's material I don't know. And that's a scary thought.

To everyone starting the exam tomorrow: Good luck!

Not Foreseeable.

I totally don't mean to make light of the situation in Zimbabwe, but despite listening to many reports on NPR via the BBC, there is no way I would have guessed that "Morgan Tsvangirai" is spelled the way it is. Flabbergasting.

Side note: For some reason I created a label for "random" and a label for "observations." I can't for the life of me figure out what I intended the difference to be.

Bye Bye Lexis.

If you search for any law student blogs ("blawgs" as we nerds call them), you'll find early on the same posts during everyone's 1L year regaling the first days of library work where Lexis/Nexis and Westlaw are introduced. They are the 2 major databases for legal reference used by everyone (yay oligopoly -- when will Google buy them out?), and much like drug dealers, I mean, smart businesspeople, they make their services free during law school and then jack up the prices for professionals. I won't go into that part of it much more (seriously, just google for "1L" and "blog" and you'll see the same posts talking about how confusing both databases are -- again, yay oligopoly).

As part of their bait, they have reward points for using their database, sort of like frequent flyer miles, because you know, doing online research is exactly the same as flying to Fiji. If you're awesome, you might accumulate enough points for really cool stuff, like a digital camera, or a TV. Sort of like all that stuff on the top shelf at the arcade that you used skee ball tickets to try and get. I was never patient enough, so I ended up settling for tootsie rolls and Now 'n Laters. So you can imagine how my Lexis point acquisition turned out.

After 3 years: A $25 gift card to iTunes and 2 $10 gift card to Barnes and Noble. Supreme Court library, watch out, I'm a legal researching MANIAC.

I Don't Know Torts. At. All.

A "friend" of mine sent me these good luck cards, courtesy of someecards.com, for the bar exam next week:





Cute. What's even more awesome than this is that said friend added a year of study for a public policy degree, and so won't be taking the bar until next year. Of course, the vast majority of law students he knows are taking the bar this year, so he'll be getting lots of fun good luck emails then.

What To Bring.

Wow. California lawyers either have scoliosis, are ninety years old, or are wusses... or all three. Massachusetts lawyers apparently have been badasses.

Here's what we can bring into the bar exam (in "one clear plastic food storage type bag (maximum size: one gallon)":

• Picture identification (driver's license, passport, etc.)
• Wallet
• Hygiene products
• Keys
• Pens, #2 pencils, erasers
• Lunch
• Spill proof water in plastic bottle (may be carried separately)
• Earplugs
• Medication(s)
• Tissues

Here's what we are specifically prohibited from bringing:

• Any person electronic device (PEDs), cell phones, Blackberries, etc., pagers, handheld computers, personal digital assistants, wireless e-mail devices, camera, radios, tape recorders and calculators...
• Handbags, purses, backpacks, briefcases, tote bags, luggage, etc.
• Notes, books, bar review or other study materials in any format or media
• Head covering of any kind (hats, caps, hoods, etc.) [Editorial note: I'm sure there is an exemption made for religious coverings, but it's not noted anywhere on the webpage. Curious.]
  
• Headphones or headsets
• Weapons of any kind
• Scrap paper
• Highlighters [Editorial note: Boo.]
  
• Any other items not specifically allowed

Cool Chick.

You probably know by now that Estelle Getty of The Golden Girls fame died today. Always playing with age (she was younger in real life than Bea Arthur, who played her daughter), she even had a website. Honestly, I'm sort of amazed that all of the The Golden Girls were alive and kickin' as of just yesterday.

I mean, Betty White's still sharp as a tack, takin' names in Million Dollar Password at age 86. Eat your heart out Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Slander Per Se.

Does anyone like the buttered popcorn flavored Jelly Belly? It's so heinous. It even looks like it has a loathsome disease. I got stuck with it AND licorice in my 10 pack. Jelly bean gods can be such vindictive bitches.

Mad Genius or Just Mad?

I took a break from studying this past weekend, in preparation of one last big final push to the end. Notice I didn't say "one last big final push to victory." Trust me. That's not assured by any means. I learned from my friend's father, however, that my secret hope possibly isn't mine!

Apparently, MAD Magazine did a spoof based on that very same premise that I wrote about regarding the bar exam. And so, sadly, being old enough to have read MAD back when the dinosaurs were living in high-tech society (Spy v. Spy and the fold-in rocked), I don't know if my previous blog post is just me claiming a memory as a new thought, or if it's actually a new thought.

Deep. I know.

Bar/Bri Down, Bar Exam To Go.

Check it. Thus endeth Bar/Bri bar review for Massachusetts. Here's what I learned from this experience:

1. Don't talk about the bar exam on bar exam day. The idea is that we're not supposed to freak each other out by claiming "there was a really tough civil procedure essay" when in fact, there was none.

2. Apparently not all humans are capable of learning. On more than one occasion, the dude in front of me would (a) lay his bag down exactly where my feet are supposed to go and (b) lean back and stretch and hit my computer and my coffee cup. Sure, he'd say sorry, or look sheepishly away when he did it, but not sheepishly enough, says I. One invasion of clearly delineated personal space--okay, I can forgive that--but 34 times? And I bet he'll still kick my ass on the bar.

3. Apparently the comic book store guy is alive and well. So the people behind me had this to say today...
A:"Did you know that one Oreo has 60 calories in it?"
B:"Actually, it has 75."
Me: (thinking loudly) "Either way, both of you could afford to, you know, stop eating them."

4. Paula Franzese is a goddess.

5. All law schools are required to be kept at a consistent room temperature of 62 degrees. There's no other explanation for why in the dead of summer, you find me wrapped up in a hoodie and pants.

6. Law. Ha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Hee hee. Hoo.

Dr. Horrible!

I like to think that I'm on top of pop culture crap--sort of like the only thing of social value I contribute to the lives of my friends, who are off doing, you know, actually meaningful stuff. But I totally missed this (BIG thank you to Reva).

I heart Buffy. I heart Angel. I heart Firefly and Serenity. I'm geeked out over Dollhouse. And NPH is all sorts of awesome playing himself, kicking Rachel Ray's ass, or being Barney. Now Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog? Awe. Some.

If I almost missed it, there might be other dorks out there who don't yet know about it. God save them.

So Close.

Bar/Bri has been building so much state pride in me... until today. Apparently, it's still legal to marry your cousin in Massachusetts.

Swing and a miss, Massachusetts. Swing and a miss.

I'm Still on Their Good Side.

There was a big box waiting for my at home today, with big letters spelling out "FRAGILE" all over it. I so hoped it was that crystal pony I ordered to take me away from studying for the bar.

It was even better. A care package from my law firm wishing me well on the bar! I have to confess that my heart pittered and pattered just a bit when I saw it. They didn't need to--recruiting season has long been over--but they did. Now all I need is a crystal pony, and I's all set, ayup.

The Taste of Rain.

There's a disagreement in the world. I hope it gets resolved with minimal bloodshed.



According to Wrigleys, makers of 5 Gum, rain tastes like spearmint. It's not exactly spearmint, obviously, otherwise they would have just called it spearment. Duh.



But according to Gatorade, rain tastes like berry, lime, or tangerine. Intriguing.

I'd like to say that studying for the bar has melted my brain, and this is the result, but no, sadly, this is how I think all the time.

I'm a Published Author. 25 Times Over.

During law school, I was on law review, which destroyed my social life, but in return let me publish an article I wrote. See, law review is basically an organization (dare I say THE organization?) that rounds up all the top students in the law school based on grades, writing, stunning good looks, and in my case, a deal with the devil, and then has them edit and publish legal articles written by much smarter people like professors, practitioners, and judges, so that they have no time to study anymore and continue to be the top students. (Even the pretty people get fat and ugly sitting around checking whether a period is properly italicized in a footnote at 2am on a Friday night. I'm not kidding.)

To sweeten the "deal," our law review gives members the opportunity to publish, which is sort of a big deal in the legal community. Think Beyonce letting Michelle or Kelly speak at a Destiny's Child news conference. And, as part of the whole she-bang, I get my ve-wee own free copy of the issue of the journal in which my article appears... and 25 reprints of the article itself. 25. Twenty-five.

So, that's one to my parents... and one to each of my 24 other sets of parents. Phew! I'm so glad they have me covered.

Just. Nothing.

I spent this afternoon studying my bar exam flash cards in a coffee shop. A man stopped by on his way out and commented: "Hope Palsgraf is on the exam!," thereby indicating that:

1. He's a lawyer;
2. He gets me;
3. He's lame.

You see, Palsgraf is a famous torts case we have to know. I could only reply: "I hope not. I suck at torts." (And torts are everything you hate about the legal system.) Which made me think about what I do hope is on the exam. And all I could come up with was: nothing.

Seriously. I'm hoping that I will walk into World Trade Center in Boston, sit down, and see a booklet in front of me that reads: "Surprise! There's no exam. We only make you study because we know that the majority of you didn't learn anything in lawschool. All you have to do is sign this form promising not to tell anyone what the bar exam actually is. If you do, we will disbar you and lobotimize you so you don't remember anything. For the next six hours, feel free to use the provided decks of cards to play poker with the people at your table. Tomorrow, we'll have pie."

When I Was Your Age.

I forgot my cellphone at home accidentally, and then I found myself needing to call ahead to a local restaurant to order dinner tonight. I stopped by a payphone(!) only to discover that it apparently costs 50 cents for a local call.

Wow.

Yikes. Another One! And Yup, It's About the Bar.

At this point, I'm basically impeaching myself by admitting that I remembered another dream last night.

I'm at some restaurant. I'm on my way out when I decide that I actually need to go to the bathroom, so I turn back into the restaurant. The bathroom is down a bunch of stairs, which I apparently could have reach via the same stairway to the exit, but oh well, it's a dream. I go down the stairs--and there are a lot--and end up in a waiting room with a crowd of people. There's a men's room, a women's room, and a unisex bathroom, which has been taken over by women changing out of costumes. (Remember: Dream.) I go over to the men's room, which is behind a big metal door--like the ones that protect bank vaults--and there are these two women trying to peek inside, which doesn't make sense because there was no window on the door.

I go into the bathroom, and I think there was some argument between me and the women, and so one of them slams the door on me and hits me with it. I, of course, realize that this is a battery, and I start yelling at her that this is so. She ignores me or something like that. So I go and get a bouncer, and tell him that I don't want to actually throw her out, but that I just want to play a trick on her. So he agrees to pretend to kick her out making her think that she won't be able to sit for the bar exam. (Again, it's a dream.)

It turns out, she's blind, and she's already failed the bar a couple of times. So I just end up feeling bad.

The Universe Distracts Me.

I finished a killer book yesterday and watched a killer movie yesterday. It's like the universe wants to remind me--on this grand long weekend off from Bar/Bri--that there is so much awesome writing and film out there still to be inhaled.

The movie:

I watched Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Golly. Robert Downey, Jr. is like a puppy that poops on your carpet, but whom you can't help but forgive and love. His charm-o-meter is on ludicrous in this pulpy, fictiony, filmy, noiry type movie by Shane Black, who wrote Lethal Weapon, which, um, I haven't seen yet. KKBB is about this dude who's mistaken for an actor, who pretends to be a private eye, and kills a lot of people, which sounds terrible on paper, but works. There's too much good stuff in the script to have to choose one to quote, so I'll pick one instead from Val Kilmer in the gag reel:

"Can we get Russell Crowe, Sheryl Crow, the Counting Crows, and the Black Crows together with Jack Black, Shane Black, and Will Smith?"

The book:

I finished reading Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, the short story collection that won the Pulitzer a couple years back. I haven't been this obsessed with a book in a long, long time. After reading the first story, "A Temporary Matter," I had to remind myself to breathe, and then I instantly went on the internet (I'm such a dork!) to see what else Lahiri had written, and, yes, if there were any blogs or reviews of the book.

I usually don't like short stories, for no good reason really. Maybe because I don't understand the idea behind a collection? Like, is there supposed to be a reason certain stories are collected? It's sort of like the music album, which in this day of iPods and mp3s has really fallen out of vogue. But once upon a time, there was this idea that the songs on an album weren't just thrown together, but that there was a rhyme, a reason, and a story behind the collection. Some artists bemoaned the emphasis on a la carte music listening that Napster exemplified, but I suppose it was inevitable with music. Probably not so much with books.

But at least with Interpreter of Maladies, I get it. Or maybe I just want to get it, so I imputed my own cohesive theory on the book. Basically it goes like this: Minorities seem to always criticize and and every pop culture protrayal of someone representing that group, as if he or she has to be perfect, but not too perfect, and represent every victory and every defeat that minority group has ever faced. Right, an impossible task. But given the minority status, pop culture never has more than one or two such characters--and most definitely not from the same minority group--in any TV show, movie, or book. So critics bash, and audiences moan.

But then little miracles like this book come along... where each piece tells a complete story bursting with ideas and emotion, and where each character can be flawed and humane. The collection is ostensibly about Indians, Indian-Americans, and the dislocation of the first-generation/second-generation experience. But by offering a variety of vignettes, there's no need to tear down one character as being too self-centered and therefore a "negative" image, or ripping another one for being too goody-goody and therefore a token "positive" image. Instead, there's a more complete picture, where the main character is simply the idea of being Indian in America. Turns out the impossible task ain't so impossible.

Defensible Massachusetts Domicile Once Again.

Where once I just said, "yeah, I'm from Massachusetts," now to be more accurate I say that "I can defend my claim that I'm domiciled in Massachusetts." When I went to law school, I bought a car in North Carolina not really thinking what that would require having never owned such a beast before. Well, with insurance, and fun state laws, I had to switch all my legal information to North Carolina info. (Fun state fact: pay the local registration tax otherwise NC puts a lien on your car, and they don't f*** around with delays.) The only upside to the whole thing was that with North Carolina tags, I could speed (not that I ever did... uh, right) without worrying too much that I'd be targeted by the cops. They typically focused on out-of-staters.

As of this week, however, I've now officially switched everything back over to Massachusetts: my car insurance, my driver's license (for which the RMV still had my old info on file--yup, they stuck my photo when I was 21 back on my license--don't worry I'm Asian, I look the same), my car registration and title, and my state car inspection sticker. The only thing I haven't yet switched is my telephone number, which I probably won't ever because it's a hassle and North Carolina state fees are inevitably cheaper than anything Verizon is going to charge me in Boston or Washington, and my voter registration, because I just can't decide which uber-liberal location I want my presidential vote to not count in. What this means, legally, is that where domicile is only dependent on my subjective intent, it helps to have paper that backs up my claim. I can't believe I actually know that this matters and how it's done. I. Am. Such. A. Nerd...









... because actually I love knowing this.

Two Things That Bug Me.

First, there's a lyric in OneRepublic's Apologize that goes: "I loved you with a fire red, now it's turning blue." The song is basically a kiss-off to a lover who screwed you, and I think this lyric is supposed to be a metaphor for the cooling of the affection once felt for the lover. But, every 8th grader knows that a blue flame is hotter than a red flame.

Second, in one of the bathrooms in the building where my Bar/Bri class is, there are vertical handle bars between the urinals. I... I just don't get it.

One More Thing.

Isn't it weird that a Jesuit school goes by the nickname "BC"?

My bar review course is held at BC Law School. I overheard this conversation today (paraphrased):

Girl: You know when I stopped being Catholic?
Boy: When you started studying theology?
[*crickets*]
Girl: It was because of two things. First, I learned in Sunday school that my cat wasn't going to heaven.
Boy: Yeah, my priest would actually lie to kids about that, too, so they wouldn't leave the church.
Girl: And second, I learned that the only reason Hitler didn't go to heaven was because he committed suicide. That means it was possible that I almost could have hung out with Hitler in heaven, but not my cat.