Final Post

7.57 pm EST
It's been a fun three years. I started this blog as a place where I could post about law school in a way that wasn't, shall we say, appreciated on Nuts and Boalts. It's been fun writing about law school, but this was never intended to carry past that. I thought about continuing the blog as a lawyer instead of a law student, but I suspect I'll do enough legal writing at work to have my fill.

Instead I'm migrating platforms - and topics. You can find me at Manhattan for Beginners, this California girl's attempt to understand that strange island we call New York.

4.34pm, EST
It is decidedly autumn. Last week was Indian Summer, green trees and T-shirt weather. This morning I woke up to the wind blowing through the trees and the first scattering of leaves on the ground.

I am, for the indefinite future, in Boston at my parent's house. We flew out to NY the second week in September to find an apartment. We found a place that we loved the first day we looked. It was in the East Village, within spitting distance of the river, in a really cute building with a super who clearly took great care of the place. Plus, it was a true two bed and it had a patio. That was Wednesday, September 8th.

We spent the next three days gathering the 350+ pages of documentation they wanted: bank statements, credit reports, cell phone bills, electricity bills, tax returns, W-2's, pay stubs... The agent at the building told us on Thursday, when we brought in a deposit to take the apartment off the market, that we would know by Friday when we had our interview. At the interview, she told us there was actually another two levels of approval we had to go through (her supervisor and the city) because there was an income cap on the apartment. On Monday, after she'd told our broker that there was no way we wouldn't be approved, as we were driving to the airport to head back to SF, she called and told us were weren't approved because we made too much. Considering that I haven't been employed all year, and A only worked until May, we thought that was ludicrous.

The worst part was that they had all the numbers they needed the very first day, on the application forms. My theory is that they jerked us around for five days in hopes that we would get so frustrated we'd walk away and leave the deposit. The company, by the way, is gonofee.com. In case you're wondering who to stay away from.

I stayed in NJ with his parents another week, and we ended up signing a lease for the first apartment we'd looked at on Friday the 17th, a week after our interview with the place in the East Village.

A called the moving company to get our stuff sent out Monday. It took until Wednesday (9/22) to get insurance requirements straightened out with them. It is now Wednesday again, a week later, and they still haven't put our stuff on the truck. I am, to put it mildly, ticked.

My parents have been reminding me that at least I don't have two small children with me, like my mom did when they moved from Dallas to Boston. This is true. But, having just gotten off the phone with the woman at the moving company who has, by her own admission, no idea when a truck will be there to ship our stuff out and no idea how long it will take to get to New York, it's hard to feel like this could be much worse.

2.50 pm
I start work in 46 days. It sounds like a long time. It's going to fly. I spent a good part of today going through the rental homes on Long Island we're going to check out. We need some sort of schedule, because people want to know when we'll be there, but it can't be too rigid because I have no idea how long it takes to look at a house when someone's there to show it to you. When my mom and I looked at venues, they were almost all rented out, so all we could do was look from the street. It made the whole business go by very fast.

September must be some sort of cut off, since there were a fair number of people who said they didn't have tenants and would love to meet with us to show the house. There are a few I really like, but for the most part I'm trying not to make up my mind about anything until we 1) see the property and 2) verify that the owner realizes this is for a wedding and 3) make sure it's really in our budget. The "W" word has a strange effect on home owners - either the house is suddenly no longer for rent, or the price goes up exponentially. Understandable, but it makes the search frustrating.

2.57 pm
A and I are going to a cousin's wedding next weekend. Having failed to find seersucker in the Bay Area (we were informed it was acceptable garb for the rehearsal dinner), A did the next best thing and bought linen pants. White linen pants. With an orange shirt. He looks very dashing, but it gives the impression that he ought to be on a beach in Cuba with a mojito in his hand rather than standing on the steps to our apartment modeling.

I'll be wearing my $10 Asby-stolen-goods-market dress, which ended up costing $40 once it had been drycleaned and hemmed. Still not a bad price, considering that it's absolutely gorgeous and fits superbly.

This will be the first wedding A and I have gone to together. Strange, really, since we've been together quite a bit at this point. On the other hand, as someone pointed out to me this morning, who'd have thought five years ago that two kids living in the ghetto in St. Pete would be in Manhattan and getting married five years later.

4.29 pm
Shortbread crust in the fridge, inexplicably chilling before being baked. Something to do with the consistency of the butter, I'm sure. We're doing dinner for a few people tomorrow night, and it seemed to make sense to get that out of the way before A takes over the kitchen to cook. I'm trying to sell him on the idea of a larger, backyard barbeque type gathering the weekend before I leave. A chance to say goodbye and all that. Also, we'd be remiss if we didn't take full advantage of the gorgeous house we're living in.

4.32 pm
Now that the bar is over, I've transitioned into full-swing wedding planning. The theory is that once I start work, I'll be at the office 12 hours a day with no interest in determining guest lists or seating charts or table linens when I get home.

A and I are slowly starting to figure out what we want and what we can actually afford. We're out in Manhattan and Long Island a little later in the month to take a look at apartments (you'd be surprised what you can't get for $3000 in the city) and wedding venues. A wants to do it in a house, which means renting from someone on the beach, which has turned into probably renting from someone out at the very end of Long Island. The plan is to spend two days and a night out there, and with any luck by the time we fly home we'll know where the wedding will be. If not, it's back to the rental by owner sites, and another mass batch of emails and spreadsheeting.

9.03 am, PST
On the plane, Albany bound. there's WiFi, but I'm blogging into Evernote with plans to upload later. Less distraction that way.

This is the first flight where I can remember not bringing books or embroidery or something to keep myself occupied on the plane. The goal is to work through my MBE flash cards this flight, then do practice questions on the next. 5 hours to Charlotte, an hour layover, then 2 to Albany. And me a captive audience.

10.20 am
3 down, three to go. An hour and a half of flight left. In the queue: real property, torts, and crim. (Query: why does the spell checker recognize torts, but not the name of the program I'm using?)

The people on either side of me are both reading Stieg Larsson novels. I have 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on my iPod. I feel like such a groupie. I bought it after seeing the novel in the bookstore - in several bookstores actually, when the hype was still in promo mode. The conflict between wanting to read the next two novels and hating to read what everybody else is reading...

11:37 am PST/2:37 EST
At least I am guessing we've crossed into the Eastern time zone, since we're only about 30 minutes out and we're starting to descend. Only real property left, and definitely not a case of saving the best for last.

I go from feeling confident that I know enough to bullshit the rest to feelings of certain and impending doom. Like when it takes me an hour to get through evidence which was, when I started studying in May, the subject I knew best. The terrifying suspicion that there's no way I can contain all the legal niceties in my head - that they will jumble and leak until I am left with nothing but a fleeting memory of res ipsas and in personams.

Gulping Air

4.18 pm
Ran my first 9 minute mile yesterday. It was also the first mile I ran non-stop. Today, we did about a mile and a quarter non-stop, and then a two-block sprint uphill. Pandora kicked up one of my favorite songs, and it felt incredible to stretch out my legs and fly. Until, of course, I got midway up the hill and began gulping air.

I thought about doing track in high school. The coach for the track team asked me to be on the team in 8th grade. I didn't, because I couldn't stand the thought of all that running. Junior year, a friend informed me that I would be playing lacrosse with her. Probably the best part of high school. The joke was on me though, because we did more running for lacrosse than the track kids ever dreamed of.

4.18 pm
I'm at the point where I just want to take the darn test tomorrow and I want the whole month of August to keep studying.

I am off the paced program. I have been reliably informed that I am crazy for even contemplating sticking to it. I have a pile of index cards, color coded and arranged by subject, and an even bigger pile for all the subjects I haven't made flash cards for yet. Sometimes I am breathing. Mostly I am gulping air.

8.12 pm
Exactly two weeks until the Bar Exam. Which means that exactly two weeks from now, I will be asleep in a hotel room in Albany after having completed the first day of the test. I should feel excited that I'm going into the home stretch. Instead I feel a numb sort of terror mingled with utter despair.

I stumbled upon this last night, and watched it with the sound on this time. It may become my mantra for the next two weeks.



8.22 pm
I am looking forward to August. Here is my list of things I plan to do after the bar:

• Tan the back of my legs (I have the inverse farmer's tan - the fronts are tan and the backs are white as a dead fish)
  
• Read "The Help"
  
• Learn enough French to pronounce menu items without embarrassing myself
  
• The novel
  

Yes, They're &!*%ing Sweet Potatoes

9.12
The restaurant I used to work in did not attract the high-caliber, discerning diner. Mostly, we got people who only went out to eat a few times a year, for special occasions, and therefore didn't know what they were talking about when they complained. Like the woman who got mad at me for bringing her a glass of sparkling wine (which, by the way, was what she ordered) because "sparkling wines aren't white wines." Lady, have you looked at a glass of champagne lately? My favorite is the one who wanted to complain to the chef because her sweet potatoes weren't orange. The chef came out, listened to her rant, tried to explain that only yams were orange, and even brought sweet potatoes out of the kitchen to show her the difference. No dice.

All this is to say, BarBri is making me feel a bit like the chef at the moment, standing at the table with sweet potatoes in my hand and hearing MPQ1 tell me "Nuh-huh, those aren't sweet potatoes, and I knows them when I sees them." I mean, really. Isn't there a line between "the bar examiners are going to try to trick you" and "absolutely ridiculous"?

If the bar examiners need to resort to calling a yam a sweet potato, then I think it's fair to question the utility of the whole exercise.

6.44 pm
A and I drove up to Napa today in search of sunlight and wine. We found both, in ample quantities.

About 15 minutes outside of Napa, we turned off into a Sunday Flea Market. In between the faded DVDs and the table of rusty power tools and the frilly polyester first communion dresses were tables heaped with tamarind and dried chilies. We might have been the only white folk there.

Then up to Sattui, where we discovered that the wine we'd come up for had been discontinued and that the last bottles had been sold about 2 days ago. We consoled ourselves by tasting a few of their whites - none of which came close to the bottle we'd wanted - and buying a Syrah.

We also went by Grgich, which is run by the man who produced the bottle that beat the French reds in the Paris Tasting of 1976. The wines were pricy, and quite frankly, I wasn't that impressed. But the Chardonnay... it was delightful. We bought a bottle and will drink it on a suitably special occasion.

Then back towards the Bay, taking in a car show and the Napa Outlets along the way.

6.58 pm
We are in the fog. I can see wisps blowing through the tops of the trees. It hasn't quite descended yet to brush against my window, but it will.

It was good to take a day off, just the two of us. I suspect that my free time is going to become more and more tight as we get closer to the bar. Next week is the last week of lectures (only 3!) and then it's about 2 weeks of self study. Two weeks which will be a frenzy of memorization and outlines and perhaps even flashcards.

And then it will be over, and it will be August, and if the fog deigns to clear I will finally have my summer.

3.51pm
After two days, the sun has finally broken through the fog. I can almost see the beams of sunshine fighting to come through the window. I know some people find it easier to study when its gloomy outside, I suppose on the theory that they'd spend the day indoors anyway. I try to do most of my studying out in the garden, though, and that only works when there's sun. (For those of you unfamiliar with Bay Area weather, July is not summer. Note even close. Trust me on this one.)

4.17pm
And it's gone.

I discovered Bar Bri 1.5 today. I guess there is something to be gained from trolling ATL after all. Someone mentioned it to me yesterday, while we were at the break between sections of the simulated MBE.

On which topic, all I have to say is that my brain still feels scrambled. I went through and self-graded, which was something of an exercise in frustration. I haven't read through any of the analysis yet - I'll save that for this weekend, while I'm watching all the lectures. I haven't gone through to see if the questions I thought I knew were the ones I got right or the ones I bombed yet, either. Again, saving it for the weekend. I figure that will be less depressing, since I'll have had a whole week to recuperate.

4.30pm
Small dog is gone for the next bit, back to his family. It was somewhat strange to wake up this morning and not hear his nails clicking on the floor. He was given a bath yesterday so he'd be clean for them, and then got some quality time with the blow dryer because it was so miserable outside that left me covered in dog fur and him still not completely dry. For a small dog, he's got a lot of fur. A swept the house this morning and there was enough dog hair in the pile to stuff a small pillow. Which is amazing, considering that he swept the whole house about 3 days ago, and I did the bedroom day before yesterday. I wouldn't be surprised if dog fur continued to accumulate in his absence.