Thomas Friedman

With the lagging job search that has become my life ever since I took the bar exam, I never expected that the "story" of my first post-bar interview wouldn't be my "story of the day." But, due to a couple of factors, that first job interview is a distant second.

First off, it was only an interview with a staffing service who will try to find me temporary work as a contract attorney. Since this very rarely leads to a permanent position I am not horribly excited, but it will help pay the bills so I'll take what I can get for now.

Secondly, during my walk back to the subway station after the interview (which went well for those inquiring minds out there) I had my umbrella open due to the constant drizzle. From a distance, however, I saw a man in a beige/cream colored suit who seemed to be struggling with a box and who also was seemingly struggling to find a location. I had decided to offer to help him, either with the box, by lending my umbrella, or through pointing him in the right direction.

Now about 3 feet from him, I got a clear view of his face:

That's right, he looked exactly like Thomas L. Friedman, the amazing columnist for The New York Times. Naturally, I froze for a second to allow my brain to digest this information. (For those who do not know, Thomas Friedman is my favorite writer, and during the time I lived in Israel I would share his articles with some friends and we would have great discussions. I wouldn't quite call him a "hero" of mine, but he's somebody with whom I'd love to have conversations.)

Anyway, I did approach him and opened my mouth and said "Excuse me, sir. Did you need a hand with either your box, some directions, or the rain?" Unfortunately, my voice cracked. Yes, here I was, dressed professionally, clean shaven, ready to interact with this awesome columnist, and my voice cracked like that of a 13 year old boy. Awesome.

He ended up declining my offer for assistance and thanked me. But before I departed the scene, I opened my mouth once more, praying my voice wouldn't crack again (it didn't), "No problem, sir. And, sir, just so this doesn't eat at me the rest of the day, you are Thomas Friedman, correct?" He smiled and nodded and I walked away.

Yes, a pretty insignificant occurrence, but still my "story of the day."

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."

Life, the Universe, and Everything...

With no disrespect to the late, great Douglas Adams and his "Hitchhiker's Guide" series of novels, the title of the third installment of his series fits my life perfectly. At least my life during the past few months.

Those who have been in regular contact with me know that I have suffered a series of disappointments in various aspects of my life in the past few months. Of course, there have been successes as well, such as placing first in our regional mediation competition. But, whether in personal, professional, or academic aspects of my life, I've hit speed bumps regularly as of late.

What makes this different than usual is that each of these "disappointments" have been beyond my control. In each situation/instance, I have placed my best foot forward and truly been at my best. Without fail, I've done all I could have done and have given all that could have been expected of me (and more). But, in each case, the "universe" has seen to it that the powers out of my hands go against me.

Now this is not meant as a whiny post for sympathy (I'll kick you if you give me sympathy. Albeit a loving kick). Rather, it's just a look at how outside factors and "powers" can knock you off-course even when you're at the top of your game. Of course, this stings with great pain, but at the same time it helps to humble me. It shows that even though I may do all that I can in a given situation, ultimately I am not in final control.

The universe as a whole can alter our hopes, desires, and life course in an instant. By universe I mean the combination of the world all around along with a "Greater Power" (since I believe without hesitation in God, it would be God for me). Whether in love, friendship, academia, competitions, etc., it is ultimately the "extenuating circumstances" that rule the day.

I don't have a solution, or words of wisdom, to address this. All I can really say is that it is truly humbling when time and time again you do everything right and put it out to the universe, but the universe chooses not to give you what you feel is right. It's all about life, the universe, and everything...

Personal Update

This isn't an issue blog, rather a brief personal update for any old friends who might stumble across this blog in the coming days/weeks.

Life has definitely been moving speedily along the past few months. I've been going through the daily trials/tribulations of school and preparing for the Bar exam this coming July. I have also been going through the ups and downs of life, although lately it's been more the downs. (On the plus side, that means the ups are going to have to make a comeback with a vengeance!)

For those who may have missed it, I moved out of my parents' house last September. My new place is a tiny 1 bedroom apartment about 1 mile away from my school. It makes for a really great walk in the mornings and again in the evenings. Unfortunately, a lot of undergraduate students live there too, so I deal with my fair share of drunken 19 year olds (not as fun as one might suspect).

I still do not have a job lined up for after law school is done. So, if any of you do happen to have any leads/contacts in the legal realm, definitely hook it up! The next 2-3 months will mainly be focused on graduating, with the 10 weeks after graduation being focused entirely on Bar exam preparation. I guess it's a good thing I don't have anyone who is reliant on me being around!!

In any case, if you're an old friend who has happened to stumble upon this blog, please get in touch as it would be good to hear from you and to reconnect with a happy past. And keep coming back! Though I won't do a whole lot of personal updates, I think my other stuff can end up being somewhat entertaining too!

Oh, and click on the adverts at the top of the page...I need to pay back my student loans!