Monday, July 23, 2007

Tomorrow's the Big Day!

The strange calm of the condemned has settled over me. It's like the acceptance stage of death.

Thanks to all of you - my family, my non-law school friends, and those of you I only know electronically- for all of your support. Also, I apologize to all of you for acting like a crazy nut job for the past several weeks.


A shout out to all my peeps in every state taking the bar tomorrow -- GOOD LUCK!



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Sunday, July 22, 2007

T Minus Two Days



The Maryland Bar exam is almost upon us. July 24th and 25th promise to be awful.




I have no will left.




I merely wish for the horror to be over.



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Monday, July 16, 2007

A Nature Special In The Kitchen

Yesterday was not a good day on a lot of levels.

Sometimes I'm stressed but more or less ok: I tell myself that if I fail the bar, I'll just take it again in February and that I will pass and that I'll get a job and I'll be able to pay off my loans and it will all be ok and the world will not end. That's what I tell myself.

But somedays I don't quite buy it, and I get jittery and stressed and so perhaps I need a drink to settle my nerves so I can continue productively studying. Yesterday was one of those days.

EZ was sharing my anxiety, so we decided to have an afternoon cocktail. I proceeded to the bar to retrieve some glasses and said something like "Goodness it's dusty over here. It' s like something died."

EZ, viewing dust as our common enemy, came over to inspect our dust problem, when his face contorted and he said "Something did die."

I took a closer look and -good god- realized that there was a dead mouse nestled in the glassware. EZ had said several weeks ago that he thought he heard skittering, but I told him that a) he was completely paranoid and b) he was imagining things. Guess he gets the last laugh on that one.

But what I love is that even though my mind processed what it was (i.e. a dead mouse) my consciousness didn't allow it to process (i.e. [chuckle] *looks* like something died over here). I guess that's how the Stepford wives do it. But hey,
when you're already stressed out to pre-heart attack levels that last thing you need is a dead creature as a momento mori. Would you like a side order of death with your bad day? Apparently so.

Also, dead mousie had been on the bar for a *while* and was at fist only visible as a puff of fur which looked like a ton of dust. But on closer inspection, you can see the little carcas complete with maggots at work (if you click on the picture you can enlarge). It's like having a PBS special on what happens after death going on in the kitchen. EZ and I both wanted to retch as we realized we had been using glasses off the bar for a few days now without having noticed the creature (for the record, we were using smaller glasses from a different section of the bar).

And as bad as seeing the dead creature is, dealing with it is much worse. EZ and I flew into a panic realizing we actually had to deal with this and decided to consult with Tiny, who was upstairs and unaware of the critter. We basically just shouted "Oh my god" and "gross" at each other for about five minutes before trying to come up with a disposal plan.

My first impulse (which I did not share) was to vacuum the damn thing up. But I was afraid that it might clog up the vacuum or, depending on it's stage of decomposition, break up as it was being vacuumed sending maggots everywhere. Either prospect is horrifying so I kept it to myself. Tiny volunteered to dispose of it once provided with gloves and many many plastic bags. EZ, being man of the house, pulled himself together and said he'd do it and before losing his nerve he quickly grabbed a cereal box from the recycling bag and scopped the mess into the trash. Clearly I am worthless as I volunteered to do nothing.


I am going to need to be very very drunk by July 26. Please make the bad man stop.








Present Terror Level: 5 Bobby Pins



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Saturday, July 14, 2007

Now Entering the Pupa Phase

Something strange has come over me.

This exam has taken over more than just my life, but my body as well. I'm beginning to feel like Jeff Goldblum in
The Fly where his teeth start falling out and then he enters that weird pupa phase and emerges all gross and flyey.

Let me begin by saying I am a clean person. If time is permitting, I like to bathe twice a day and brush my teeth 2-3 times per day. I even floss. However, there is evidence that I'm changing irrespective of my hygiene. The evidence:

I constantly feel greasy. EZ and I sit around constantly in our Queen Helene mint julep face masks, but that isn't even making a dent. I touch my face at any hour of the day and it feels like there's been an oil slick. Consequently, my face has broken out and I look like the before portion in an 80's teen make over movie.

Ditto with my hair -- gotta wash more often than usual. And it will be strangely greasy despite being dry. Once this is over I plan to seek extensive hair therapy. There seems to be something about the bar that makes one's body go on funk-overload, creating all sorts of things you didn't know bodies could create. I think I may be sweating more too. That could also be due to my the cocktails I've started drinking at 10:00 a.m., so it's hard to tell.***

I have also given up on dressing like a normal human being. It's all stretchy pants at this point because jeans and what not are confining. I have two pairs of stretch pants: one normal and then one that is red with yellow polka dots that resembles something Ronald McDonald would wear in his off time. I actually wore the red and yellow ones in public in college before my sister staged a massive fashion intervention with me. I changed for the better and haven't look back. However, I've taken to wearing the red and yellow pants, don't ask me why. But I do not leave the house in them. No sir.

Hopefully at the end of all of this I will emerge as a beautiful butterfly. Or a lawyer.

***Usually at the beginning of the bar review course they instruct you that you have to decide on day one of the review if you're going to stay in your relationship or not, because there is no breaking up later. That is the night to fish or cut bait because you will not have the time or mental energy to break up later and no one wants a perpetual fight over socks in the hamper to be the reason one failed the bar. Likewise, the start of barbri is NOT the time to give up your recreational/professional drug/alcohol use. Personally, I am dancing with the one who brung me: cookies and booze.

Present terror level: four bobby pins


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Monday, July 09, 2007

The Terror Level Keeps Rising

















As Samuel Johnson said: "When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."

Well friends, we are a fortnight from the bar exam. I am hoping that my impending sense of doom serves to concentrate my mind wonderfully. So far so bad.

If my mind fails to concentrate, I may have to be a street lawyer in the same vein as a street preacher. That is, a crazy homeless person shouting snippets at strangers like "I'm a covenant running with the land!" or "burglary consists of a breaking and entering of the dwelling of another at night time with the intent to commit a felony" and what not before going back to my cardboard box.

It will only get worse before it gets better.

Current Terror Level: 4 Bobby Pins


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Thursday, July 05, 2007

Bobby Pins: My Very Own Terror Alert System

About this time last year my friend KN had her soul broken by studying for the bar exam.

She told me "I'm in bad shape, cause I've got out the cloth headband like it's seventh grade."

At the time, I didn't understand what she was talking about. Cloth headband? What the hell?

Now I fully understand.

As the study stress sets in, small things begin to make you crazy. Like WHY IN GOD'S NAME IS MY HAIR TOUCHING MY FACE?! GET OFF!

I have taken an alternate approach to KN's cloth headband - that is, bobby pins. When I get home from Bar review, I secure my bangs back from my face with pins, a la 1992.

But after a while little wisps start working their way out and TOUCHING MY DAMN FACE. Therefore I have to insert another pin to secure those hairs. Over time, I add more pins ever closer to my forehead. And just as the colors of our terror alert system signify how ready we must be for attack, the number of pins is a direct correlation to my stress.

It's 19 days until the Bar and counting. We're presently up to three bobby pins of terror.

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Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Fuckers and Their Fireworks

I realize it's the 4th of July.

I realize that fireworks are exciting.

They're shiny and sparkly, and oh, noisey! What fun!

But honestly, is that set of 50 black cats as exciting the nine hundredth fucking time you set it of as it was the first time?! Is it the fact that you can annoy your neighbors that excites you so? Or is it that you are merely a cretinous mass that is shouting "OH BOY NOISEY!" every time they go off?

I may come across the street and kill you.

They are not even *good* fireworks. There's no sparkly goodness to accompany all that noise. Couldn't you have gotten one decent firework instead of 1,000 pointless ones?

God, I hate you.


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