Day Two

"Straightforward" is not a term I would use to describe today. Nightmarish, maybe. Sickening. Putrid. Take your pick.

200 multiple choice questions. 100 in 3 hours in the morning, same in the afternoon. These are not one sentence questions, either. Some of them are relatively short, but some are half a page. When they called 5 minutes left I had 10 to go. I had to just fill in random circles for the last 8 because I was out of time. Not good.

On the walk back to the hotel, I overheard a girl on the phone telling someone that it was the worst test she's ever seen. All the questions were absolute guesses that looked NOTHING like the practice questions she'd been doing all summer. She was cancelling meeting someone for lunch so she could be alone in her hotel room. She was on the verge of tears.

I wasn't about to cry yet, but I felt the same way. I felt like I absolutely knew the answer to about, mmmmm, one of the questions. The rest - no freaking idea. I've never seen closer answers. I hate these people.

The afternoon session was better. I felt like I absolutely knew the answer to maybe five. I finished early, and even had time to go back and check a few answers I wasn't sure about. After two of those I realized that wasn't gonna help me at all, and I left. I do not feel good about this part of the exam.

I came back to my room to find an email from my supervising attorney at the externship I did last semester. He said he guessed I'd be feeling pretty beat up after the end of today. Feeling like I hadn't gotten any right. He said that everyone who passes the bar feels like that after day two. I thought that was really cool of him. Maybe there's hope after all. Time to regroup for tomorrow.

Day One

So yesterday was day one, but I tried to post and couldn't get the wireless Internet in my room to work. Now it is.

Checked into the fabulous Airport Red Roof Inn to discover that my room is 75 ft. from the exact spot on the railroad tracks where the hourly trains are required to blow their horns. You know those kids train whistles made of a block of wood with four holes? Imagine someone cuts off your left ear and jams one of those in the hole all the way to your brain, then lets Dizzy Gilespie go to town on the other end. Every hour.

75 yards beyond the train tracks? An airport runway. Nuff said.

Anyway, most people seem to feel the same way about day one of the exam: that it wasn't that bad, but they're afraid to say it. It might mean that we missed something. And the third essay was pretty tricky, so I'm pretty sure I messed that up a bit. But all in all, it was more straightforward then I imagined it would be. I think.

Off I go

DAVE PATINELLA, YOU'RE A WINNER! Tell 'im what he's won, Phil!

For the next four days you'll be on a fabulous, no-expense-included trip to the exotic Airport Red Roof Inn of Ontario, California. As part of your self-inflicted prize, you'll enjoy four days and four soul-crushing nights freaking out about, cramming for, freaking out about, taking, freaking out about, taking, freaking out about, and taking the California Bar Examination!!!

Tense up and stress out both mentally and physically as you endure such amenities as crappy overpriced room-service...lack of sleep...hair loss...loneliness, depression, anxiety and self-doubt in our shitty dark room overlooking a parking lot. All at a cost you can't afford!

Surround yourself with regret and panic as you share this hell on Earth with 800 other poor schmucks who've made the same mistake you have and have no time to talk to you about it! That's right, all this is already yours for the astronomical price of $163,472.43!!!

BUT DAVID, THAT'S NOT ALL!!! If you don't pass this time, you get to COME BACK in 6 months and do it again, adding to your total cost in dollars and taking another year off of your life!

And, as a special bonus to you, you'll have a chance at another prize! If you do somehow manage to pass the examination from hell, we'll throw in long days of meaningless paperwork - FOR LIFE!! ENJOY!!

~ See you all in five days, when I will be posting again - incredibly drunk.

yep, that jest about says it

A friend emailed this to me. You could pretty much sum up my feelings by replacing "NY" with "CA"...

Fuck the NY Bar

...and fuck the board of law examiners. These motherfuckers have nothing better to do in life than ruin the summer of 10,000 starving law school graduates every year.

Hey assholes... ever wonder why half of all law school exams are open
book? Because, lawyers don't need to memorize every fucking thing...we go to law school to learn how to LOOK THINGS UP!!!!

Fuck your stupid model answers. Fuck you and the 37 exceptions to
hearsay. Take Blackacre and shove it up your ass. Tell your intended
beneficiary to blow me. Would my foot up one of your asses constitute a material breach? If NY has such an indelible right to counsel, why do we have so many friggin' convicts? Did those guys pass your little quiz, you fucks? Oh, and by the way, thanks for the fucking typing lottery...and don't worry about all the people who didn't get in... we do not feel DIASADVANTAGED in any way by having to write out six fucking essays. Like that's really fair.

Stay out of my wingspan... I'm pissed off.

Signed,
A reasonably prudent law school graduate

* this is in or around a law library near you

You will all be extremely pleased and relieved to know

that while I am studying for the bar I am growing a beard.



Whatchoo got on yer mahnd, son?





Doohuh?

A Peek Inside My Head

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