I’m not trying to make this a habit, but I got four hours of sleep before the exam again this year. Why? Because I’m stupid. Or because I was reading all the e-mails that people have been sending me. Or that I’d hoped they’d send me. Or maybe it was the male equivalent of menstrual cramps.
Regardless, in the wee hours of this morning, I climbed into bed and read a book for about twenty minutes. I found that during law school, if I tried falling asleep right after studying, I’d be tossing and turning all night (which was oftentimes four hours back then as well). So I brought a book with me, distracted myself enough to sleep well and woke up with a jolt when the radio alarm went off.
Perhaps the worst part of getting up this morning was… well, I knew I had to get ready pretty quickly and I was heading out to take the bar exam, but as I kept listening to the radio, I heard the names of the DJs and thought they sounded rather familiar. Then after another song, they mentioned 94, 694 and 494—three interstates freeways that surround the Twin Cities. “Why would they be playing this radio show all the way here from Minnesota?”
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Because the last four times I’ve stayed in a hotel was out in L.A. (the film festival, final interviews for B&G, the night after leaving the mansion and the aftermath show—you can find out more about all of them in various posts in the blog). For some reason, even though I knew I was taking the Minnesota state bar exam, I thought I was out in California. Very strange…
So I got up, gathered my things, made sure I had my laptop packed up and headed down to The Liffey to grab some breakfast. I’m claiming that I think better on a full stomach, but back in school, having a full stomach and being in class around 3:00 in the afternoon would put me to sleep, so it’s debatable. I ate an omelet, walked over to RiverCentre and got myself registered to head in and start typing my fingers off.
I have to say, using my laptop was a lot different than I’d expected. It was kinda nice to be able to cut and paste, correct mistakes without leaving big blacks streaks on the page to cross out the crap you didn’t want in there… it was also nice when I hadn’t the slightest idea what to write, but I’ll get to that later.
Upon getting into the computer room to get everything set up, I discovered a bunch of little orange flags on all the tables. Apparently, if we needed help from a proctor, we were supposed to raise our hands; if we needed help from one of the computer proctors, we were supposed to hold up our flags (Vive la Bar Exam!). Thankfully, I didn’t need to do either, so I got to keep the blood down in my fingertips for the most part.
Then things got started. The exam started with the MTE, initials that signify something I don’t remember. Basically, we were supposed to write a memo to a client using a bunch of materials provided for us in the MTE packet. “Here’s the stuff the opposing party is talking about; this is the case that refutes it and will make sure we win the case.” Sadly, much like last time, I didn’t finish.
That was the most disappointing part of this morning’s portion of the exam. I was all set to work fast, get things laid out and have plenty of leeway to double-check stuff, get in a quick nap, what have you. Considering I finished most of it last year and I type a lot faster than I write by hand, you’d think that’d be the case here, right? Apparently, I’m an “Assistant Boy Scout Master of the Keyboard” as well, given how much I didn’t get written. At least I had everything laid out right—I just didn’t have enough time to explain the points I’d made.
Still, that was an hour and a half that got finished up faster than I’d expected. (Yaaay!) Then came another two essays that took up another hour and a half (Boooo!) But it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. In fact, I’d say I sounded somewhat like I knew what I was doing. (I couldn’t remember how to defeat the “no warranty, express or implied” clause, but I know there was a way to do it… crap.)
Once I finished working on those—they were pretty much done aside from that warranty thing—it was lunchtime. I sat down, ate half that sub I bought yesterday and was washing it down with a can of Mountain Dew. Since we still had some time left before the exam restarted, I went outside and walked up and down the block. It was nice and sunny outside and it felt good to be outside the building where all hell broke loose today and won’t let up until tomorrow afternoon.
Then it was time to get going again. This time, we had four essays and three hours to write them (as opposed to the MTE for half that time and two essays for the other half). I opened up the booklet, read through the scenarios and thought, “Oh, shit.” Unlike this morning, there were no issues and explanations for said issues that popped into my head. Translation: it was bullshitting time! I made up a whole bunch of rules, which probably didn’t work in my favor, given that two of them dealt specifically with numbers—income taxes and dividing property between a couple getting divorced. (Fingers crossed…)
The urge to just pack up and leave after an hour was definitely there, but I knew I needed to write more to have any chance of passing, so I tried getting the issues organized and elaborating on some of them as well as possible. Did it work? It’ll be a few months before I find out. Oh, and for those who read about last year, you’ll note that I was pissed about having an Ethics/Professional Responsibility question since they’re part of the exam maybe once every two years. Guess what was part of the exam again this year? Grrrrr…
Still, I finished up as much as I could think up and handed in the whole lot except for the little question booklets. The bar exam people are nice enough to let us keep them so we can go home, look up all the rules and see just how miserably we did on the essays. What a nice gesture. Personally, I won’t be using them for review—I’ll be using them for tinder the next time I start a fire. Light those puppies on fire, use them to get some bigger sticks burning and end up with a big bonfire. I think my new motto should run along those lines: “If you’ve got the bar exam, make smores.” Kinda catchy, don’t you think?
I wasn’t really in the mood to eat by myself—I didn’t have friends to eat lunch with like the last time around, so aside from saying “Hi” to a couple people, the last interaction I’d had with a person was Katie. I was going into person withdrawal. Not good. I figured I’d give Justin a call, see if he had plans for dinner or if we could get together. As a matter of fact, he did have plans. And he told me about them yesterday. Crap.
So then it was time for another flashback to last year: I headed back down 7th St. looking for someplace to eat. I didn’t want to grab anything at a pub—two meals in a four-meal span is enough for me, thanks—so I kept walking and walking and walking until I saw a sign for a café. I thought, “Okay, I’m hungry, it’s not a pub, I’ll stop there.” And then it turned out to be The Day by Day Café, the place where I ate last year. As tempting as cauliflower soup sounded, I didn’t want that much of a flashback, so I kept walking until I reached one of those old train cars-turned-restaurant called “Villa Roma Pizzeria.” I wasn’t really in the mood for Italian food, but I was tired of walking around, so I went inside. And I accidentally ordered my dinner to go.
So I got to carry a calzone back to the hotel with me, but I think it was worth it—damn, that thing was good. Flaky crust, melted cheese… maybe a little too much pizza sauce, but still… damn. I’m glad I stopped there for dinner. After eating my dinner, I went downstairs and spent some time jumping between the hot tub and the swimming pool, but I didn’t stay down there for too long: there were no chicks around. But the primary reason was because I felt like I was going to fall asleep in the hot tub and that didn’t seem like a very good idea. With all the money that’s been spilled into my legal education, it’d be kind of a waste to croak halfway through the bar exam—we wouldn’t even find out if I could have become a lawyer this time around.
I headed back upstairs after swimming, pretended to shave, then jumped in the shower for a while. Now I get to spend the remainder of the evening hanging around in just an open long-sleeve shirt and shorts, not caring about what’s happening outside the four walls of this room (unless there’s a fire, in which case I might seriously consider how much it would hurt to jump through a fourth-story window to save myself). Most importantly, I might squeeze a little studying in tonight, but I’m definitely going to get more than four hours of sleep tonight. I’m aiming for five.
