DONE |

Thank the Lord, the Bar Exam is DONE!!!!!!!!!!

Who knows whether I passed or not, all that matters is that I did all that I could, and I completed the darn thing. So I'm happy ... at least for now :-)

I'm a bit more exhausted than I was yesterday, but I'll try my best to recreate today's experience as well. Now, keep in mind, today was "Bar Exam 2: The Multistate" and like most sequels it's not as funny, as compelling, or just plain as good as the original. But, for you, my loyal blog readers (even though you don't exist), I will continue.


Sleep last night was limited as well, even though I was completely exhausted and tired. I didn't feel as though the exam was weighing me down mentally, but evidently it was. This time, I fell asleep prior to midnight, but awoke numerous times throughout the night/morning hours. Although this was really annoying and prevented any quality sleep, it also ended up being my savior.

Evidently, in my groggy state on Tuesday morning I inadvertently disabled my alarm rather than just shutting it off temporarily. In deliberating what time I should get up on Wednesday, I decided to stick with 6:05 am even though the arrival time would be 30 minutes later than Tuesday's (since Tuesday's test involved laptops and today's didn't). Fortunately, I have the habit of checking the time whenever I wake up in the middle of the night, so the last time I woke up I rolled over and saw that it was 6:27. The shock gave me the jolt I needed to jump up and call myself an idiot.

Now, yesterday saw a series of "good calls" and "mistakes" on my part. Obviously, the genius move of disabling my alarm goes under the mistake category. But, the decision to try and get up early to review notes gets praise as a good call. Because of that, even though I technically overslept, I still had plenty of time to eat breakfast, get ready, and even do about 15 practice problems.

The morning walk to the test was rainy, but I fortunately had my umbrella. Nonetheless, I gladly accepted a ride from 3 co-sufferers when they stopped about halfway to the destination (not that y'all will ever find this blog, but if you do, thanks!!). The morning session itself was fairly rough. While many of the questions were similar to sample questions provided by PMBR (a Bar prep class that focuses solely on the Multistate examination), there were also others that seemed as though they came from Mars. On at least a handful of the morning's 100 questions I went through all four answer choices and eliminated them all ... D'oh!!!

Lunch was a repeat of yesterday, but this time I decided to let my brain completely rest and didn't review. I'll chalk that up as a good call because I was much more awake and alert in the afternoon than I was during either today's morning session or yesterday's afternoon session.

When I returned in the afternoon, I was pleased to find that the questions seemed more manageable. There were, of course, a few bumps in the road. First, a girl who was seated at the table directly across from mine stood up and turned in her exam less than halfway through the allotted time! 100 questions in under 90 minutes?!?! For her sake, I hope she was a genius ... otherwise she might be back in February :-(

The other notable moment was that the chief proctor of the exam stood at the podium with 90 minutes to go and announced "30 minutes remain in the exam!" My heart fell out of my chest, down onto the floor, flopped outside into the pouring drizzle and died 10 times over. Until, of course, I looked at my watch and realized that the guy had "fudged the bucket and told me too many words to know." Everyone else must have had a similar reaction b/c about 800 angry future lawyers started grumbling and protesting until the guy admitted his mistake.

Anyhoo, I'm DONE and that's pretty much all I care about at this point. Of course, since most, if not all of my friends decided to skip town tonight (even in the rain and traffic). So I'm left alone here in my Roanoke hotel room until I get back to Northern Virginia and DC tomorrow morning/afternoon. Oh well, it'll just be like a night alone in my apartment.

Thanks again for all the support!

A Sum Walks Into a Bar...

(insert canned laughter)

Yeah, so rather than write up 50 e-mails, make 50 phone calls, or send out a generic mass-email to people who might be curious as to how day one of the exam went, I decided to post on the blog (Not that there are 50 interested people, I would just call/email 5 people 10 times each).

After attempting to go to bed at 10 pm last night, I tossed and turned for over two hours, even though I took two Tylenol PM tablets at 9:45 pm. The last time I checked the time, it was 12:09 am, so I fell asleep at some point after that. The next thing I knew, I was given a not-so-pleasant wake-up alarm from my cell phone at 6:05 am. Thus began day one of the Virginia Bar Exam.

I took my time while eating breakfast and reviewed some notes, then, while getting ready I realized mistake #1. I left my belt at home. Now, six months ago, this would not have been a problem since I was bursting at the seams due to my excessive weight. Unfortunately, at about 25-30 lbs lighter, the lack of a belt caused a problem, especially since I planned on walking to the testing site. In the end, I made do and no, my pants did not fall off at any point. But I'm glad y'all got a chuckle at picturing the sight.

The morning session consisted of 5 essay questions on various topics of the law. It wasn't too horrible, though there was one subsection of question two that I had NO CLUE about. I sat there, staring out into space, trying to recall every word in my notes and every word spoken by the lecturers during my course. Finally I decided that I wasn't going to remember, so I just moved on. Good call by me, especially given the 36 minutes per essay that we had (5 essays, 3 hours, do the math).

After an apple and a "refreshing" turkey and cheese sandwich prepared by me in my hotel room, I decided to review my notes on family law and wills and trusts since neither topic was tested in the morning session and both are regularly tested on the Virginia exam. This counted as good call #2 because both were indeed tested in the afternoon essays. Unfortunately, mistake #2 was spending too much time reviewing the family law and not enough time on wills. Consequently, my wills essay was not as strong as it could have been. But oh well.

The afternoon portion of today consisted of 4 essays and 20 short answer questions, meaning a mix of fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice. Unfortunately, the first essay question of the afternoon left me "mortified and stupefied" as well as "shocked and chagrined." I sat there and just stared at it, trying to recall anything on the topic. But, no matter how much pressure I put on my feeble brain, I couldn't conjure up any memories of that subject area. So what did I do? That's right ... I made up the law. I hammered out 5 paragraphs based on my random invention of Virginia law and just moved on.

Overall, the day was okay. The morning session was much stronger for me than the afternoon, but I think I did well. In any case, it's in the past. Now I'm just waiting for "Success China Buffet" to deliver my Moo Shu Chicken. Tomorrow is the Multistate Bar portion of the exam. It consists of 200 multiple choice questions (100 in the morning and 100 in the afternoon) covering six areas of law (Contracts, Criminal Law, Evidence, Constitutional Law, Torts and Property Law).

So far so good. 'Til next time ...

Bar Bound

In approximately 12 hours I will begin my journey to Roanoke, Virginia, the site of the July 2007 Virginia Bar Exam. Basically, it's a test of how much law I've learned in the past 2 months (and will forget about 4 days from now).

Many of the thousands of people taking a bar exam of some state in the USA over the next few days consider the bar to be the most important test of their lives. Fortunately, I'm not as short-sighted as that (at least I don't think I am). Don't get me wrong, the bar is quite important due to the fact that it dictates whether or not I'll be licensed to practice law in the commonwealth of Virginia. However, there are far more important things in life, and far more important tests that will drive me crazy.

Anyhoo, I'm not going to sit here and wax philosophical, partly because I'm so brain-dead after the past 2 months of excessive studying. Just wanted to chime in before the long drive. As always, best to all...

Quick updates

I know, I know. I haven't posted a new update since the blog reappeared last week. Sorry. I've just been horribly busy studying for the Virginia Bar Exam. I have seriously never studied as much or as intently as I have in the past 7-8 weeks or so. Hopefully it'll pay off with me passing, but we'll see. Obviously, if you can find some time to add a prayer or two for me to your regular prayer schedule, I'd gladly appreciate it!

Other than that, things are actually quite boring. Once the bar ends I will begin searching for a job ... which should be quite a hectic process since my lease on my current apartment ends on September 29th and I have zero desire to remain there. But, I also have zero desire to move back in with my parents, so a job is necessary in order to move somewhere else. If anyone wants to hire a lawyer, just let me know ;-)

Oh, and for those of you who do not frequent the various friend-networking sites of MySpace or Facebook, or who have just not seen me since May 22, there has been a bit of a change to my physical appearance. Let's just say I took a page out of Britney Spears' book...

And yes, since that picture of me was taken, I have trimmed my hair to an even shorter length. I guess the most appropriate thing to say would be, "Oops, I did it again."