Judgment Day

Well, folks, I'm off to hell.

Sorry for the sparse posting as of late, but I'm sure you understand.

I'm really, REALLY not looking forward to this.

Wish me luck!

Boy was that dumb

I'm blaming my brother. I spent the better part of the afternoon playing Sims 2. Those of you who have played it know that it is the most addictive game ever, especially when you have the cheat codes, as I do. I can make my family rich enough to build the biggest, best-furnished, most fantabulous house ever. Which takes quite a lot of time, but is completely fun.

Sigh. Really, if I don't study much, I'll have an advantage in that I'm inherently less stressed out than everyone else, right?

A new home

Well, I'm sure you'll all be relieved to know that my quest to find an apartment, though it kept me from the internet for a few days, was successful! I've signed a lease and put down a deposit on a nice one-bedroom in Westwood (West Los Angeles -- a fantastic area) -- and the best part is, they allow pets, so if and when I finally find the chihuahua who steals my heart, the terms of my lease won't stand between us.

I once again got to experience the joy of flying, including a cancellation that almost landed me in Las Vegas for a night (on the one hand, not a bad place to be -- on the other, they wouldn't have put me up anywhere decent and I would have had to fly through Phoenix the next day and possibly miss dinner with Mom, which I'd been looking forward to for weeks), followed by a flight to Denver rather than Colorado Springs and my bumming a ride into town from complete strangers. Adding insult to my family's collective injury, the exact same airline this very evening also cancelled the exact same flight, which my father was planning to take this afternoon. He wasn't as lucky as me and is stuck in Vegas until tomorrow evening, and I don't get to open my birthday presents until he gets home, dammit. Ahhhh, air travel in the age of terrorism!

So, sorry for the sparse posting as of late. For those tallying my bar practice exams, I got my last three emailed to me this weekend. They were taking a frightening downward turn until the last one. Apparently I don't know shit about corporations and my proposed mall curfew policy isn't identical to the one the grader would have proposed, so I lose points. Man, gotta love a curve that grades you based on your idea of good parenting skills.

Please, God, let me pass the bar! I promise I'm going back to church soon!

Being-single gripe

There are a lot of things I could gripe about that are the direct result of my largely involuntary singledom (I say "largely involuntary" because, while I am picky and have every right to be, the fact is, most men don't like smart, independent girls, no matter how hot we are. I'm not going to argue about this right now because it's not the point of my post, but I'm right about this). But today, I'm going to make a monetary gripe.

I want to go on a cruise. I REEEEEALLY want to go on a cruise. So much so that I have spent hours researching and reading about cruises, and when I decided on a cruise that had good rates, good onboard entertainment, and according to the singles sites I looked at, was single-friendly with its onboard events and activities. It stopped in all kinds of cool places and left from NEW ORLEANS. I was completely psyched. So I went to book my reservation online...

And the strangest thing happened...

The price went up. Like, it was twice as high as it was supposed to be. This confused me, so I called the cruise line (Carnival, in case you're wondering). The utterly helpful woman (that's sarcasm, in case it's not coming through) told me, after my interminable wait on hold, that it's because I'm trying to book for one person. Apparently if you don't have a significant other or a friend who happens to have the time and money to go on a cruise with you (because, you know, my friends aren't all making their own bar trip plans), you have to pay for two people, even though you're only one person. As a random politically incorrect aside, I DO NOT GET how it is that airlines will charge a fat person for just one seat when they take up two, and yet cruise lines will charge me -- a smallish person -- the price for TWO people's meals, seats at events, etc. when I'm unlikely to eat even as much as one average person on a cruise (I just don't eat a lot. That's just me). So my cruise plans are teetering on the windowsill, about to fall out. Which REALLY pisses me off, becuase I REALLY had my heart set on a cruise. I may try calling a travel agent. OR -- if anyone reading this is looking for something fun to do the week of August 21-28... I'm a fun person and even relatively neat! Keep it in mind! I'm serious! I really want to go on this cruise! It's a great deal -- less than $900 for a balcony stateroom (I won't settle for less than balcony. That's just me) AND my fantabulous company. So, anyone wanting to visit Jamaica, the Caymans, Mexico and/or New Orleans... let me know if you're interested... :)

I tried to send them a complaint from their website but they have one of those annoying things that only lets you send 1000 characters, which didn't adequately capture my righteous indignation, much less my meandering but tantalizing soliloquy prose style. Even when I got it down to under 1000 it still wouldn't send, so I am trying to find their real email address and just email them directly to express my dissatisfaction and disappointment in them. I cannot describe how much I am bothered by this idea that alone equals bad, together equals good. The essence of adulthood is being happy with yourself, which includes being happy doing things by yourself. And yet society insists on making us feel inadequate, at every turn, if we're not paired up. Maybe we don't want to be paired up! Or maybe we haven't found someone who's good enough! Or maybe we're tired of having our hearts broken by people who aren't who they seem! How dare society take its notion of the ideal existence and not only stigmatize me, but penalize my pocketbook for my nonconformance, no matter how much I can do about it.

See, I can make anything a cause :)

And, no, I haven't done any Bar/Bri work yet this week.

Another Bar/Bri gripe

So I've been reading about other people who have done sims and then taken a class day or two to review them. Since we only have two class days left, today and tomorrow, I figured that's what ours would be. So today I came to class with only my laptop, on which I'd written my exams, and I didn't bring the in-class workbook (I didn't figure I'd need it for anything).

I walk into class, and what's going on? Another lame, basic, run-of-the-mill essay workshop. I honestly don't see the point of these beyond the first one. He never says anything new, and all of the substantive stuff he goes over we can pretty much just read ourselves. So it's a complete waste of time. I could have slept in! Grrr.

So instead I'm planning my bar trip and finalizing apartment hunting plans for this week. Thank GOD I brought my computer to class today. Maybe I'll play some Mario while I'm at it. And at least I get to go to the gym afterwards. That makes it worth the drive down here.

Doing my part to ease the stress of my fellow bar-hell dwellers

Yesterday was the simulated essay and performance test (six hours of test -- like a full day of bar horribleness). Since I left, I have done absolutely no bar work whatsoever. Here's what I've done since the exam ended:

Went to the gym and had an hour and a half workout. It was heavenly (I usually go in the morning, but I got there at 7:15 to find out that the gym doesn't open Saturdays until 9, when the exam started. Lovely. I may have to try the afternoon-gym thing more often -- it gives me the flexibility of staying as long as I want, instead of leaving before I have time to finish my weights because I have to get to class in time. Moving on...).

Watched movies and ate smoked salmon and drank wine. It was heavenly.

Took a bath and almost fell asleep.

Went to bed and slept until 1:30 this afternoon. It was like being a teenager!

Chatted online with some friends.

Watched TV.

Read Marie Claire and the Tribune.

Didn't feel one bit guilty for not doing any bar exam studying.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go watch Shakespeare in Love.

Anyone following suit and blowing off work and not worrying about it still has less reason to worry than I, and I'm not worrying at all. :)

Throwing in the hat

Today Bar/Bri has due an obscene THREE essays for my location (by email -- if I'd turned them in via snail-mail they'd have been due earlier, and more staggered. But, um, why would I turn them in earlier than I had to?). Fortunately, we had no class this morning -- but I took advantage of this to sleep in, which I REALLY needed to do. Someone from the movers showed up this morning to look the place over so they can give me an estimate for moving costs, and then I set about calling yet more apartments to set up viewing appointments for next week. Vacation this won't be. Sigh. At least I get to look at a bunch of pretty LA apartments, several of which are on the beach (PLEASE let my firm put me in Century City, PLEASE let my firm put me in Century City!).

Anyway, after I took care of all of this, showered, and gathered my things, it was mid-afternoon. I marched down to my apartment's sun deck, remedies, wills & trusts, and community property reading in hand, planning to read all three and make it back to my apartment within a few hours, after which I would run to the grocery store, have dinner, and then write all three essays and prep for tomorrow's simulated essay and performance exam.

Boy, am I ambitious.

I finished remedies, almost fell asleep in the sun, walked to the grocery store, came home and snacked, talked on the phone to mom and just this moment decided that I wasn't going to do the last three essays. It's not as though Bar/Bri's comments are at all helpful (case in point: for torts, in which I had a small section talking about vicarious liability and labeled "VI. Vicarious liability," the grader wrote "you didn't address vicarious liability directly." Um? And apparently I also missed intentional infliction of emotional distress, even though the hypo was a run-of-the-mill invasion of privacy/defamation hypo -- IIED simply did not fit the facts, and I would put money on my synopsis against the grader's). To add to my recent distate for Bar/Bri, early this morning in my inbox was my "graded" con law essay. Apparently I managed to mix up the graded assignments book with one of the 5,034 other practice books we have, and had answered the wrong essay question. TWO AND A HALF WEEKS LATER they have sent me an email saying simply that I was supposed to do the GAA question (DUH) and that since they couldn't tell what question I was answering they couldn't give me a grade.

This is what they charge $3K for???????

Tonight, I'll study some for the Day of Hell tomorrow, and then I'm watching a movie.

Oy

Well, the nightmares have started.

The other night, I dreamed that it was the day of the bar exam, and I was freaking out because, in typical fashion, I hadn't studied, and I'd hardly done any of the practice multiple choice questions from barbri. These are both non-dream facts, by the way. I had real fear in my heart that I would fail.

I guess the message from this is: now I really do need to start prepping for the bar.

I've been a bit better recently, and at the very least I've been productive, even if not solely on bar stuff. I finally found a place to stay for my trip to LA next week (something that was stressing me out) and have started making appointments to view apartments. The only strange thing about this process is that there are so few places that are ready to rent when I need them. I don't mean that I'm too late; on the contrary, I'm too early. From the looks of it, people who want to live in LA just waltz into town a week or so before they plan to move and get a place then. Every ad I see is "available now!!!" (the excalamation marks are key) or "available 8/1/05." I want a place in September. And I want the security of having a forwarding address -- and a place to send the movers -- a reasonable amount of time in advance. So is this just a Los Angeles thing, or are people in other cities this fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants? Because, hey, I'm all about being laid-back and learning to surf, but I'm just a little too anal for this. Gah.

In other news, for the second time this week I've turned in an essay with literally seconds to spare (in case the barbri folks are counting, which they probably aren't). Apparently if you send in late essays, they're now sending auto responses telling you they won't grade them (I'm actually afraid to reload my inbox right now, lest the email kiss of death visit itself upon me). Bitches. If they were being on time with their grade returns, I'd grudgingly admit they have the right to do this. But I have received a total of one grade when I should have received at least two or three by now. So imho they have no right to be nazis about deadlines when they aren't getting us our grades when they promised. Whatever. It's not like they're particularly helpful anyway. But, my nervous mind keeps nagging, your clock may be a few minutes off! In which case I could be screwed, by no real fault of my own (seriously, if turning something in at the absolute deadline isn't okay, then they shouldn't have absolute deadlines. I have a point here. Right?) Then again, if they're counting this by California time, I may have screwed myself out of the extra five minutes I could have used to finish my brilliant (meaning "mostly incompetent") exposition on corporate fiduciary responsibilities. (Thank GOD I'm gonna be a litigator.*) Okay, I really need to stop thinking about this. Like, now.

Back to Mario.

*I assume. My firm still hasn't told me what I'll be doing. Which majorly sucks, because the closer I get to actually working, the more I think I'll be unhappy with anything other than IP lit. DAMMIT, if they are going to give me something else I need more time to adjust to the crushing disappointment!**

**I swear to God I'm not a spoiled brat. I'm just sleepy, slightly tipsy from my wine, and just a tad PMS-y.

Oh Mario! I missed you so!

Holy cow, this is dangerous. You can play old Nintendo games, and games from other consoles (but, come on, it's all about NES) on your home computer. Oh man. I'm never passing the bar.

Edit: credit is due (and was shamefully withheld from) my good friend and co-bar-procrastinator Laura.

I'll miss you, Sandy

Justice O'Connor resigned this morning.

She's been my favorite justice for years. Smart, no-nonsense, about as unpolitical as you can be on the land's highest court, and best of all, unpredictable. She's everything I want to be. And now she's gone.

I won't say too much, since I'm not an expert on the Court and I'm sure plenty of other blogs will have far more eloquent and insightful things to say. I remember when Ross and I, during 1L year, made plans to clerk for her after graduation (unfortunately, grades and other such nonsense got in the way -- not that they would have helped us now). If nothing else, that's a tribute to her versatility: that Ross, one of the law school's pre-eminent green liberals, and I, known around my school as one of the big conservatives, could both aspire to clerk for her speaks volumes of her ability not to let partisanism interfere with her duties to the country.

I'd say something here about how I hope that President Bush and Senate Democrats and Republicans alike will do their best to keep this from escalating into an ugly and unnecessary fight, but I'm sadly no longer that naive. I just hope that, in the end, we're fortunate enough to somehow wind up with someone halfway decent. But I doubt they'll ever be able to fill her substantial shoes.

Thanks, Justice O'Connor: you've given lawyers everywhere something to aspire to.

The beginning of the end

I've heard it said that July 4th weekend is when it really kicks in. That's when you realize, the Bar is only a few short weeks away and start actually doing the work you've been putting off thus far. This sounds good to me -- I'm going away for the weekend to attend a small family reunion, but I plan to bring some work with me, as I'm sure I'll need a break from the constant flow of people.

So this morning, I wake up a bit later than usual and decide:

I don't think I'll go to class today.

Yup. Just decided to skip. It's just an essay workshop, so it's not like I'm missing anything substantive. I have to admit, though, it does make me feel a little guilty. Like, this is supposed to be the weekend I get into working, hard core. And what do I do? I commence the weekend by slacking. Sigh.

At least I'm taking the train to Michigan, rather than driving -- I can try to do some multiple choice questions and/or essay outlines on the way up. That will make me feel a little better, I think.

And, anyway, it's a holiday weekend. They don't really expect people to do a lot of work on a holiday weekend. Right?

Right?