Previously Unpublished

I have secured the Martinelli Apple Juice. A tradition of mine since as long as I can remember, dating back possibly as far as elementary school when my dad would stop by the convenience store if he took us to school and one of the prized beverages to be had was the little apple shaped glass bottle of Martinelli’s. It was and still is the best tasting apple juice I have ever had, including the times I have been to an apple mill and had fresh apple juice pressed (though that is good too in its own right).

However, the main significance is that the usual reason my dad was taking us to school was because something big was up. Maybe he needed to help transport a science fair project, or was chaperoning a trip, or we had to go somewhere at a special time because we were taking a test and thus were also entitled to a special treat to get ourselves in gear. Every major test I have ever taken for as far back as I can remember, I have made it a point to have a Martinelli’s the night before.

Moreover, it has to be the little glass bottle, for tradition’s sake, because it doesn’t taste as good in the larger containers it comes in now, and finally because having become edumakated (I think it’s funny I had to look up how to misspell that word), into symbolism, and also raised Catholic. I have developed this little mythology in my head about how the apple is like the fruit from the tree of knowledge (it doesn’t go any deeper really than apples being a symbol of knowledge, though I do find the whole battle between good and evil fascinating).

So anyway, I secured it (this is becoming harder and harder to do) and in my mind, that was the last major hurdle to getting through exam prep. Now I just need to get down to the test center three days in a row, find parking, get the computer up, have it not fail on me, answer essays galor in a correct and competent manner and get a passing score on a 200 question multiple choice test, and then have upload work correctly, get a grader who is happy to skim over my essays and write pass, have the test not get lost as the grader shuffles to and from work, and have a passing score posted in November.

I need to watch a movie tonight. Potter 5 was good if anyone needs a suggestion. I’ll probably see Chuck and Larry at the risk of imagining family law, con law, k law, and tort law problems arising all over the place.

Good luck to anyone taking the bar exam tomorrow and for the next two or three days. I’ll be thrilled to post again at the end of the week!

-jd

Closer to the beginning of the bar exam ordeal, I wrote about songs that have had relevance to me throughout this process. A couple new ones have revealed themselves over the last couple of days as we head into the final hours of this thing (I now go by hours since 96 seems larger than 4 although the other side would probably counter that the word “days” after the numeric amount would probably in the end make one feel better about the situation than the word “hours”). The first is “Hello Stranger” via an amateur music video featuring a girl whose actions and mental state, far from culminating in a crime, have undoubtedly induced at least a little sanity into the minds of current bar-preppers everywhere (sorry, my mind is just in overdrive and every word I utter can seemingly be linked to some sort of legal concept or theory).

I would also like to point out that studying for the bar has made me smarter in other realms simply by coincidence as this is the first time I have managed to place anything other than text into the content of one of my blogs (turns out it isn’t very hard).

And then there is “Spoon,” a Dave Matthews Band classic (I tend to regress towards my earlier tastes and favorite activities when faced with a challenge - the Beach Boys and in particular “Don’t Worry Baby” have featured prominently on my iPod in recent weeks). On first glance, the most relevant Spoon line would seem to be the one about being crazy and how laughing out loud makes it all alright. That would also tie into the themes of the above video and also the song “Brain Damage” referenced in the above post. However, the greatness of Spoon continues with the line “I thought of you/and turned to the gate/and on my way, came up with the answers/I scratched my head/ and the answers were gone.” That’s like every day when I think about the bar, realize an answer, think about it for a minute, and then the answers are gone!

Okay, enough analysis since I doubt any of this will be on the bar. Just taking a short break. I imagine I’ll have two more posts (one directly pre-bar and one directly post-bar before I transform this website into either a documentary on how I balance being a lawyer and an aspiring fiction writer or else a blog about how I failed the bar because I was blogging 96 hours before the exam.

-jd

Today is Major League Baseball’s All Star Game and I am typing this post as sort of a draft in the law library in a Word document so that I can upload when I get home. By then the game will be over, and although during any normal summer I would probably have grilled some hot dogs and had a couple of beers while watching the game, alas this year I will be missing the festivities to study a lineup that includes Remedies, Business Associations, Property, and Contracts (I hope Property gets injured and has to go on the DL). There is only one Cardinal on the team this year, but it would have been cool to see some of the young up and coming pitcher in the game show off their stuff. I sort of think we are entering the era of the pitcher.

Anyway, despite not being able to watch the game, I did make a special effort to pay tribute to the game. Since the game is in The City by the Bay, and hometown hero Barry Bonds is in the house starting, I thought I’d slather myself in cream today (not-so-cryptic reference to Bonds’ alleged blissfully unaware usage of the skin-absorbed steroid). Specifically, though, I was piling on the Bengay today to allow myself to continue typing. Over the past few days, my shoulders, neck, and left arm have become painfully sore and full of knots. It’s rather unbelievable. Probably due to the crap chairs.

So anyway, I smell of old people – though it does fondly remind me of my grandfather from way back when – but it does the job and I can keep up my study time. Plus, I think everyone is blaming it on the older woman who sits in our section of the library. To her credit though, she seems to be carrying on a May-December type romance with a dude she must have met in BarBri. He is very doting on her, though it seems at the expense of his study time as he goes to get food or to copy something or wherever while she diligently studies. Whatever works, clearly.

-jd

I had a funny thought today at the law library as I was running up the stairs to get to my floor after a walk outside to scavenge for food. What if the bar exam were a task in a video game and when your “character” (you) got to the “level” (day) of the bar, you sat down and clicked your controller button like mad so that your “score” meter that hovered above your head made it to the “top” (pass) within the time allotted.

I came up with the idea when I was thinking about how and why I run up stairs - at least ones that are sort of hidden from public in a stairwell. I can’t stand to just walk, sort of like when you are controlling a video game character, you never want them just walking. I know I’m probably mixing a number of video games up here like the Sims and maybe some sort of boxing game that equates tapping with endurance.

Anyway, I know I’ve lost it, but if I had the opportunity I’d definitely opt for the clicking and I can assure that my thumb would dance if it meant that this studying hell would end.

-jd

My lack of blogging has coincided with the realization that this isn’t your regular round of finals and even the slightest deviation to write a 10 minute post is enough to induce guilt for days. Whereas I’d normally chalk up checking the internet as a good way of balancing life, this is the freakin’ bar! I knew that before, but then I woke up this (yesterday) morning and saw that it was now July and it seemed as though somehow after over six weeks of work, I had accomplished nothing and would need to redouble my efforts in order to make up for lost time.

Therefore, I have been closing out the library at midnight everyday this past week except for Friday when I took the day off after lecture because Ticket came home. I know, I know, closing out the library and grinding myself into exhaustion is not the way to go about this, but I’ve been preparing this methodology since I can remember. I always get the most work out of my nights. Lectures in the mornings are basically just a daze. However, since lectures will be over except for our last three this week, I’ll start augmenting my bedtime to around 11 PM so I can get up at 7 AM and focus on essay writing in the morning. But basically, late night grinds are the way I work.

Anyway, since there are only 20 some days left, and although am decidedly not panicking, but rather am maintaining a finely-tuned tension, I don’t think there will be very many posts from here on out. It’s crunch time baby! Of course after the bar, I’ll probably publish the 20 or so drafts I have written out and maybe I’ll summarize some of the “note card” posts. Or maybe I’ll flush the toilet of the whole thing even thought it would mean the world will never know how I not only relate the bar to baseball, but also how I relate the bar to Catholicism (no it’s not just the hell thing).

May everyone climb their mountain, chew gum, whistle, and wink. (I made that signoff up just because it’s late and I’m enjoying my favorite part of this whole ordeal which is listening to trance music while completely exhausted. I imagine it’s like being at a rave sans the drugs).

-jd