Training for the run – check.
Eating right and exercising – check.
Taking vitamins and getting enough sleep – check.
Mentally reconciling failing the bar twice – not so much.
But as of today, I am 35 pounds lighter than I was in January. Yesterday I wore a dress to work that is 4 sizes smaller than the size I wore in January.
Bar exam? What bar exam?
I ran 10 miles on Saturday. Oh, yes. 10 miles in a row. Without stopping. Crazy Running Friend morphed into Psychotic Masochistic Running Friend when she unilaterally decided not only to run 10 miles, but to add significant hills to the run as well. Nice. She is SO not getting a Christmas gift.
Knowing I was going to be in some sort of paralytic state after the 10 mile run, I booked a facial at a local spa that I like to frequent. I thought it would be nice to lay down in one of those comfy little beds while lavender smelling steam wafts over me. Also thought it wise to elevate my feet, lest they actually fall off from the shock of running that far.
So, I am all tucked in the comfy little bed, in my little purple robe with the matching little purple turban when I comment to the aesthetician how lucky she is to have such a nice, stress-free job in a place that is quiet and tranquil and smells nice. This was her response:
“Yes, I love it. I was halfway through law school when I decided that I didn’t want a stressful, unhealthy job where I made people, including myself, miserable for a living so I dropped out in 2001 and have been doing this ever since.”
Ya don’t say.
Talk about a reality check. I was literally dumbfounded. Speechless. And speechless is a state I rarely achieve.
So, here is the list of Things I Learned From My Brilliant Aesthetician:
1. Practicing law is not everything. Plenty of people are happy in other professions.
2. I am not a loser destined for a tragic existence eating cat food and talking to inanimate objects if I end up not practicing law. See #1.
3. Lawyers don’t get to work in quiet, tranquil places that smell nice.
4. Not everyone actually wants to be a lawyer.
5. Not everyone thinks that becoming a lawyer and practicing law is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Who knew a facial could be a life changing event????
Federal Judge Rejects $49 Million BAR/BRI Settlement
Dear Barbri Class Reps,
You are seriously deluded if you think you deserve over $70,000 for being a class rep in this case, while I, as a class member, stand to receive approximately $125.
Did you peeps pass the bar? Are you representing yourselves? Because I? Totally failed. Twice. And trust me, I hate Barbri with the fire of a thousand suns and consider it a sartorial mandate to pontificate endlessly on the unmitigated clusterfuck that is the California Bar Exam. But seriously? I am going to check and see if you class reps passed the bar; if you did...OH, HELL NO. You do NOT get to pass AND get a settlement for over $70,000.
Seems like it's back to the old drawing board on the settlement. Keep me posted.
TTFN,
Your BFF, The Princess of Darkness and Anger
I have plenty of social events these days to coax myself out of the Princess of Darkness and Anger phase I have been firmly ensconced in since May 25. One of these events was a little birthday soiree for Offspring #2. Said soiree took place at the Gwen Stefani concert. Me, Offspring #2 and three other girls, aged 10, 11 and 12. Good times.
This is a Public Service Announcement from The Blonde Blogger:
Here are some tips for you so that you do not make the same rookie moves I did when taking a Gaggle of Giggling Girls to a concert or basically any event wherein you are the only adult.
1. Caffeine is very, very bad for young girls. Worse for the tragically uninformed parental figure who is subsequently stuck with them in the car for extended periods of time.
2. Ditto for sugar. See #1.
3. Being outnumbered is SUICIDAL. Total rookie move. Have no idea what I was thinking. Don't do it. Just don't. You are not smarter; nor are you quicker, more agile or more anything. You will crash and burn and your mother will cry when she sees what they've done to you.
4. Being outnumbered by psychotic, over-caffeinated pre-teens screaming, "THIS SHIT IS BANANAS" is also very expensive.....especially when they sell Gwen Stefani dolls at the concert.
No more sneaking wine coolers into concerts for me......
I found this excellent new blog today.....check it out, if you are into intelligent political discussion...as oppposed to what I discuss here...;-)
The Extreme Center
I got this email today....how sad.
Dear Amazon.com Customer,
We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated books by William A. Klein have also purchased Federal Jurisdiction, Fifth Edition by Erwin Chemerinsky. For this reason, you might like to know that Federal Jurisdiction, Fifth Edition will be released on July 1, 2007. You can pre-order your copy by following the link below.
Federal Jurisdiction, Fifth Edition Erwin Chemerinsky
Price:
$54.00
Release Date: July 1, 2007
Lest any of you think that I am Annie Athlete, running around all the time like a champ, fear not. Paralysis has set in. I feel like I am 100 years old today.
If I could figure out a way to drink coffee in the shower I would......
OMG. I have lost my mind and here's why:
1. Today is Sunday.
2. I got up at 6:30 a.m.
3. I ran 8 miles. Yes, 8. 8, which is 2 less than 10, which is really just hella far...
4. I do not want to kill myself, nor am I limping around like a gimp. Yet.
So, my half-marathon is in a month. Literally, a month from Saturday. My desire to finish this half-marathon in order to actually finish something successfully (unlike the bar exam) goes hand in hand with my quest for Total Hotness. 2 birds, 1 stone.
So, the other day, Crazy Running Friend was not feeling well so she canceled the 6 mile run we had planned for that evening after work. Now I was faced with a dilemma. Go to the gym after work, which I hardly ever do and can always talk myself out of, because THE ENTIRE FREE WORLD is there after work, or I could…run alone. Scary.
There is a long trail adjacent to the business park where I work. I have never run by myself. I have never run on this trail. Crazy Running Friend has a truckload of kids and is self-employed ~ she regales me with fun little anecdotes about projectile bodily fluids to keep me entertained while I am actively avoiding heart failure (otherwise known as running.) I had my Ipod with me, but would I have the motivation to keep running when I could just walk and no one would know it???? Do I take my phone with me? What if I am stabbed and left to die on the trail and my husband doesn’t know where I am?
So, I headed out onto the trail to run my 6 miles. I did it. I only stopped when I had to, like for oncoming traffic. My really cute, yet utterly inefficient and inaccurate pedometer indicated that I ran 6.72 miles, but it actually turned out to be 5.88 miles. Close enough for me.
But I ran into some interesting peeps on the trail:
To The Group Junior High Slackers Getting Stoned: Don’t bother trying to hold that joint like it’s a cigarette. I could smell it a mile away… I wasn’t born yesterday, Sparky, cigarettes don’t look or smell like that.
To Hot Young Girl Making Out with Weird Boy: Please, girl, pull your shirt down and don’t let boys feel you up in public. Not cool. When you are 30, you will tell your therapist that you felt dirty after doing this. Besides, now that he has gone that far, and you cut him off at 2nd base, you’re about 3 days from being dumped.
To Douchebag On The Cell Phone: Your wife is totally going to find out what you are doing and your life is going to suck hard thereafter. That grass over there on the other side? It’s not greener, my friend, it just has bigger boobs.
To Totally Fit Triathlete Guy With No Shirt On: I could hear your Ipod. Britney totally rocks.
I don't think I have ever mentioned this, but my Perfect Husband has some Perfect Offspring. The other day, I was with Offspring #2 on a field trip. (Oh, and law school? Totally ruins field trips. I was petrified something was going to happen to one of the other children entrusted to me ~ I didn't even want to buy them snacks. Do they have food allergies? Do they have diabetes? Can they have sugar? Will they actually tell me these things? What if they choke? Can I give them the heimlich? Or is that a "bad touching?" What if this child flies off the roller coaster? Am I liable? The words "negligent entrustment" came to mind.....talk about a total buzz kill...)
But anyways, riding in the car with Offspring #2 (11 year old girl) she asks me if I got the results from the bar exam.
I said, "Yes."
She said, "Did you pass?"
I said, "No."
She said, "Oh, bummer."
I said, (trying to make it sound less tragic and shitty than it actually is) "It's ok, only about 37% of people that took it passed."
She looks at me like I am a total frickin' idiot, and says, "Why would you take a test that no one can pass?"
So, here is my new theory….the hotter I become, the less it will matter that I am multiple-failee of the California Bar Exam. Seriously. The legal industry is male dominated and coincidentally, so is the industry that I work in. So, I work in the male dominated in-house legal department of a large corporation in yet another male dominated industry. It is my contention that being hot, and particularly having a hot bod will take you far in life and make up for other (most often, glaring) deficiencies. Anyone who has ever worked in law firm knows at least one assistant, secretary, paralegal, associate, etc. that is there because he or she is totally hot, or at the very least, hotter than the other applicants.
This is how the conversation most often goes:
Guy A: Did you read the report (brief, motion, agenda, or whatever) that Hot Bod wrote?
Guy B: No, why?
Guy A: God, it's a total train wreck. Poor grammar and syntax; completely disorganized. Did we get a writing sample before we hired her?
Guy B: Who cares? At least she’s hot.
Guy A: Totally.
Guy B: I was thinking of nominating her for Associate of the Year.
Guy A: Good idea, I’ll second it.
How many of us have said this about a hot person we work with? I have said it. “Well, at least she’s hot.” Hot people are forgiven more often. Is it wrong? Yes. Annoying? Yep. Discriminatory? Totally. Does it happen? Yes. Is it my battle to take on? Nope. So I am gonna make it work to my advantage.
Having said that, my new goal in life is to get as hot as possible so the conversation about me can go something like this:
Guy A: Did you read the brief that Blonde Blogger wrote?
Guy B: No, why?
Guy A: Stellar work. On-point and concise, the client is going to love it ~ he will save millions in costs and fees. But did you hear she can’t pass the California Bar Exam?
Guy B: Who cares? At least she’s hot.
Guy A: Totally.
Guy B: I was thinking of nominating her for Paralegal of the Year.
Guy A: Good idea, I’ll second it. I think she needs a raise too.
This morning, I was clicking around reading my morning blogs (Thank god I can multi-task like a champ because it is a wonder I get any work done in the mornings; this is why I work till all hours. But really, I am one of those peeps that would go into work at noon and work till 9 p.m. But I digress…..) and I came across a post on Law With Grace entitled Loud Barbri Eater. I almost fell off my chair laughing so hard. I HATE assholes in Barbi, or PMBR or any other torture session/bar review class in which I have been trapped, that act like the lecture is taking place in their kitchen, or living room or some other area where they feel they can act like their mother never taught them any manners. Let me tell you a little story about The Sweaty Bitch in my Barbri class…….
Once upon a time, in a crazy land far away, called Berkeley, I took Barbri. I attended the live lectures during the day. The auditorium was always totally crowded and you had to get there early to get any seat, let alone a good seat. I was carpooling with a friend of mine and we always sat in the same general area. Because I drink about a gallon of water a day in addition to about a gallon of Diet Coke, an aisle seat is imperative.
This being Berkeley, home of the environmentalist as well as home of the non-existent parking space, a lot of people rode their bike to class. Now, I am all about tree-hugging and eco-friendly makeup and hairspray, blah, blah, blah, but it was July and hella much hot outside and of course, there is no air conditioning at Boalt. So, the bike riders would come in ALL SWEATY AND DRIPPING THEIR DISGUSTING BODILY FLUIDS ALL OVER THE PLACE. (Note: for the record, I am slightly germophobic and even if I wasn’t, I have a fairly generous and clearly defined “personal space” that I like to maintain.) Evidently, people who anticipate sweating profusely on a daily basis do not wear a lot of clothing. This is 6 different kinds of wrong. Subsequently, those of us lucky enough to be seated near the Sweating Environmental Visionaries were subjected to the pungent aroma of the Morally Superior as well as their bodily fluids that were flung about willy-nilly on a daily basis.
One of these bike riders would always come into class 10 minutes late, and try to find a seat around me somewhere. Why she chose, EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR THREE DAYS, to find a seat near me, is frankly, just beyond reason. But she did. And every single day, WITHOUT FAIL, SHE WOULD TURN AROUND, GIVE ME DIRTY LOOKS, HOLD HER NOSE, AND BEGIN GESTICULATING WILDLY, INDICATING TO ALL THOSE NEARBY THAT I SMELLED BAD. (Note: It would take a person of average intelligence about 5.2 second to surmise upon meeting me that 1. I am not from Berkeley. 2. I shower on a daily basis.) Since, I knew beyond a reasonable doubt (law school education at work, my friends!) that I did not, in fact, smell bad, I could only conclude that she did not like my perfume.
Picture if you will, barely clothed, smelly, dripping, Sweaty Bitch, WITH HER BIKE HELMUT STILL ON HER FRICKIN’ HEAD, saying I smelled bad?!?!?! Oh. No. She. Di’int.
Every time she turned around, I looked her in the eye and said, “WHAT???” and “IF YOU DON’T LIKE MY PERFUME, SIT YOUR ASS SOMEWHERE ELSE!”
It took 3 days for that dumb bitch to get a clue and sit somewhere else. And that was only after I surreptitiously sprayed her backpack with my little purse sized perfume sprayer thingy that I got as a sample. Smell that, Bitch!!
I am still deciding....I may just put off the decision and suck up the extra $250 I will have to pay......
If you read First Time Takers Can Be Assholes and Jackass: Part II, then you know how much it pains me to say this, although if I was honest I would say I am not surprised:
Jackass? Totally passed.
To register for the July 2007 bar exam. HHhmmmmm.......I think I am gonna sit this one out.....I think I might be able to gear myself up for February, but I just can't see getting my act together for this one...do I even want to?
NOTE: This is a serious pity party here, peeps. Read it and weep, but just know that today is the last day of said pity party, as this will be the last rant about failing the bar. Plus, my husband might kill me if I don't shut my pie hole.
I am pissed. P-I-S-S-E-D O-F-F. Like seriously, Alanis Morissette pissed. Fiona Apple pissed, even. And angry is not attractive. Psycho bitch rageaholic is not hot. While I am embarrassed beyond belief, I am angrier than I am embarrassed because I just failed the bar exam for the second time.
I did everything I was supposed to do. The first time, I took Barbri, the live lectures. I went every day and I took notes, created outlines, flashcards and did all the practice essays. I did extra practice essays. I did all the performance exams and did all the reading. I memorized all the mnemonics. Barbri tells you to be a sheep and just give the examiners the answer they want. I was a sheep.
I took both the 6-day and 3-day PMBR courses. I went every day and took notes. I completed the in-class book as well as the red and blue books. I purchased past MBE examinations from the NCBEX website and completed those under testing conditions. I reviewed every wrong answer. I made notes about the areas of law in which I was scoring low and went back and reviewed those areas. I listened to those god-forsaken CD’s, which was a seemingly endless dose of Sominex.
Here is what I didn’t do: Have fun. Talk to or see my family. Go out with my husband. Talk on the phone. Screw around on the internet. Sleep in. Work. Make money. See my friends.
I took that shit seriously. I hounded my husband endlessly about contracts and property and constitutional law and it was all we talked about. I constantly had a stomach ache ~ I was under a huge amount of pressure due to the financial strain I was putting my husband under. You gotta throw down some bills for Barbri – it is not cheap. Neither is PMBR.
My family had had a rough couple of years and was desperately in need of some good news, or good fortune, or really, just something not upsetting and disappointing. My husband’s family is full of lawyers who all passed the first time – one of them in more than one state. They seem to be under the misconception that I am brilliant (no doubt evidenced by my excellent taste in husbands) and I was afraid of disappointing them or my husband.
I was, and still am, friends with a lot of people that I have worked with at various law firms and in house legal jobs. My friends are lawyers, paralegals, legal secretaries and administrators. They “knew” I would pass and were anxiously awaiting the results. At the gym, I took Spin classes with a group of attorney’s from the local D.A’s office that I chatted with on a daily basis about the law, their jobs, my classes and the bar exam. They too, “knew” I would pass, because I am so “smart.”
And when the exam came around, I woke up on time. I was prepared and looking good. No computer problems, stuck to the time constraints on the essays, performance exams and even the MBE’s. I outlined. I went to bed early and watched bad TV.
I did everything I was supposed to do.
And I failed. Those fuckers failed me. I was old, tired, fat, broke and a failure.
So, the second time, I took Cal Bar Tutorial. I had to throw down even more bills. I did all the same shit I did the first time. I was at the library every day freezing my ass off. My in laws were still convinced I was brilliant, and my family was still in need of some good news. I had the same friends in the legal profession and the same husband who made me Lemon Drops every night (ok, pipe down, not really every night.)
I tried to relax a little more, go out with my husband more, have a little more fun. I spoke to my family on the phone. Improved my MBE scores. Bought more books. Worked out more.
Again, I took that shit seriously and when the exam came around again, I did the same thing I did before. I was there early, I was prepared. I did not have computer issues and I remembered my stupid little brown admittance slip. I ate healthy and dressed warmly and the room wasn’t freezing.
I did everything that repeaters were supposed to do.
And I failed. I fucking failed again.
I am pissed that I have subjected myself and my husband to staggering student loan debt for nothing. Absolutely nothing. I am pissed that some questionable people passed the bar and I didn’t.
I am mortified that I have had to explain to my friends and family that I failed again. Especially to my friends in the legal field; everyone knows some asshat (my new favorite word) lawyer with no common sense that passed the first time and here I am, a two time loser. I am afraid that they wonder whether or not I am smart enough to do this. I am afraid they question some of the choices I have made that have potentially put me in this situation. Why didn’t she go to law school right after college? Why did she work during law school?
I am afraid that the best I will ever be is what I am right now.
And that is why I am fucking pissed off.
So, I am running a half-marathon in July with a crazy friend of mine who seems to think that I can haul my fat ass (although admittedly less fat than it used to be, but still in the upper percentile) across the finish line in under 3 hours. (Note: You can't even sign up unless you state you can finish in less than 3 hours; how do they verify this? For first-timers like me, it is a total crapshoot. I guess I can...what are they going to do if I can't? Kick me out? Puhleease, I will already be enroute to the hospital via ambulance sucking on an oxygen mask.)
Since failing the motherfucking bar exam, AGAIN, finishing this half-marathon, and not actually dying while doing so, has become vitally important for the following reasons:
1. It will prove that I can finish something....worthwhile. Don't even get me started on finishing law school.
2. It will prove that I don't fail at EVERYTHING I do.
3. It will prove that I can stay on the path to health and vitality I started down in an attempt to bring myself out of the dark and evil pit that was my first attempt at the bar exam.
I really don't know what I will do if I can't finish this half-marathon. I need it for my sanity. Which is an improvement over what I needed for my sanity the last time I failed: Rocky Road and Belvedere Vodka.
So, I ran my fat ass some 6 miles yesterday and I am headed out for some more today. I really just need to succeed at something. Anything.
Because I am pissed. Stark-raving-lunatic kind of pissed. And since no one wants to hear a pissed off lunatic bitch endlessly, I thought I would keep my comments to myself for now...
But, congrats to all those that passed....
