Movie Quote that Best Sums Up Bar Review:

"The Horror...The Horror."

Contemplating...

what sort of penalty I'd face if I went out and cut down my neighbors cotton-wood tree (yes, this presupposes I am capable of cutting down a tree, which is not likely). I'm sure I could work up some sort of necessity defense being when I went to the dentist my mom said my X-Ray showed my sinuses pressing on my molars since they were so full, my eyes are practically swollen shut, and I'm pretty sure the damn thing is not even in full bloom yet. So, if there was a necessity I would only be liable for property damage/loss. Being that in this hypothetical I can cut down a tree, I'm also sure I could do so without damaging anything else on their property. Which means, the only damage I would be liable for would be the loss of the arguably worthless tree. I'm going to go find a chainsaw.

In bar review related news, I sorta slacked today and did not do my multistate practice questions. Oops. I don't feel terrible since I did them Monday, which BarBri told me to take off.

Dear BarBri Part II,

Your lecture handouts discriminate against people with large handwriting. If you're going to make me fill in the blank all summer at least make it so I can fit in the word or phrase you want me to stick in, otherwise just print it for me and trust me to follow along and highlight/underline as necessary.

Your Loyal Follower,
Elle Woods

Dear BarBri,

Your schedule is completely insane and borderline unmanageable when combined with PMBR (not to mention working). You cannot really expect me to do all those practice problems in addition to PMBR problems. The essays I'll make an effort to do, but the practice problems are just unmanageable unless I start doing lines of meth off tables in the library to fuel 20 hour study sessions in June.

That is all.

Hugs and Kisses,
Elle Woods

Dancing With the Pseudo Stars

My parents just drunk dialed me over the fact that Apolo Anton Ohno won Dancing With the Stars rather than Joey Fat-One (my dad is a former skater and apparently my mom has a thing for short 1/2 Asian pocket boys). I really could care less, but I did meet Joey on TRL (I was 18, do not judge) when I was in the audience and he was promoting Rent, so I had hassled them a bit about it yesterday.

Direct quote from my father:

If Joey Fat-One had won I'd have started voting republican.

Umm, What?

In more important news BarBri starts tomorrow. I still have 35 pages to read, which is totally misleading since it's in the legal sized book. Kill me now.

Oral Hygiene

I went to the dentist yesterday. In addition to the usual scolding for poor flossing habits (more on that later) I had my first cavity, although I hesitate to call it that since it was in reality an area where my sealant had broken off the tooth (it was the far back upper right tooth) and there was a bit of a next to the edge of it, but a cavity didn't show up on the X-Ray and they weren't really sure if it was a cavity or just that my sealant had broken off. Regardless, my normal dentist wasn't in and the one who did the filling was what rather aggressive. The whole experience was not very enjoyable and I have numerous raw spots in my mouth to prove it. Luckily, my mom (who works for said dentist) gave me nitrous so I didn't care as much about being orally battered. I complained to her last night that she hadn't given me enough nitrous and she responded that usually they do not go past 3, she had me at 4.5; I find that weird since I remember getting nitrous in high school and being super sensitive to it.

Now for the flossing habits. I've never had this done before, but apparently after age 20 they're supposed to test the "pockets" between your teeth and gums as a screening for gingivitis. I've never had to have this evil process done before. My numbers were all fine, however I'm rather sure my mother told them to start performing this check on me. She is what I call a Flossing-Nazi, she literally flosses 3 times a day. She has been on me recently to start flossing (after my brother had 3 "non-flossing" cavities, why she isn't hassling him I will never know), so after being told there was too much blood during the cleaning, and that the evil pocket measuring thing was going to be a bit worse for me since my gums were a bit inflamed (You think? You just poked them with sharp objects for 30 minutes!) the ever so sweet pregnant hygienist proceeded to shove something between my gums and each one of my teeth. Not cool. I suppose their scare tactics and propaganda worked though, I flossed last night and this morning.

PMBR Day #6

Each day of PMBR I've adjusted more and more to the whole concept of studying all summer (this might be because my scores improved with each subject-despite being sure I'd do horribly later in the week).

I know a lot of people who did not take the 6 Day, largely since they didn't feel they (or anyone else) needed it and it was just a scare tactic created by the evil corporation that is Kaplan. For them that is fine, but I knew it was going to be hard for me to get adjusted to studying all summer and that I was going to need a frame of reference as to what I needed to study most. Plus I knew reality kicking me in the ass would help tremendously as well.

Today was the first day I didn't go in and take my test at the center in the morning. I learned during Kaplan for the LSAT that I am very coach-able (read: brain-washable), I stuck to the "Kaplan Method" religiously, I did all the reading, practice problems, and took as many practice tests in the center as I could. In the end it paid off when my score improved 14 points. Thinking about the LSAT just made me realize how much more I'd like it if the Multistate was divided into sections so you knew which one you needed to be thinking about for that hour.

I had a point to this post, but it was lost long ago. Basically I'm annoyed with my friends who have been telling me I didn't need the 6 day. One of them (after going on about how it's stupid) said to me "if I don't pass the bar I'm not going to look back and say, I wish I would have taken the 6 day", my response was "well I would." For me, it was what I needed. I'm not going around telling people who didn't take it they made a mistake, or that they really needed it, yet I am getting judgment about my choice.

PMBR Day #5

Hearing gunners and law reviewers talking about how they did and realizing I did way better is providing such a twisted and semi-evil sense of satisfaction and justification.

I kicked Contracts ass today, once again it was one of my worst subjects in law school. Basically all this means is that I knew the rule all along but I sucked at applying them and didn't put in additional effort to get good at it.

"The Average Attorney, Full of Law School Brainwashing."

The 4th Circuit recently held that the right to counsel does not extend to have your non-lawyer friend represent you in a criminal proceeding. (U.S. v. Baucom). The defendants basic claims were that they hate lawyers and cannot afford the ones they trusts so their friends should be allowed to represent them. In the "attempts" to obtain counsel they felt was satisfactory they continually stalled and asked the court for more and more time as they sent questionnaires to potential attorneys rather than attempting to make personal conduct. Defendant's affidavit is by far my favorite language of the ruling.

Defendant...has little confidence in the legal profession...Defendant is aware of a few attorneys he trusts, but their multi-thousand dollar fees are out of the question...He does NOT trust just any attorney out of a grab-bag whom the government is willing to furnish; neither would this defendant be satisfied with such an “attorney’s” concept of the Constitution of the United States after the average attorney, full of law-school brainwashing, thinks that the Constitution is what the judges say it is, rather than what the Constitution itself, says it is.

In case you had not figured it out yet, both men were changed with tax evasion and were of the opinion that even entering a plea of not guilty would accept the validity of the fact that they owed a tax to begin with. Counsel was appointed but the men refused to cooperate-and continually threatened to sue them and the judge who appointed them. Eventually the court grew tired of the stall tactics and told the men if they did not have counsel by a certain date they would be forced to be appear pro se, it was on his date that they sought to have their friend who had not graduated from law school, passed the bar exam, or been admitted to the state bar-despite claiming to be in good standing with "several" bar associations.

PMBR Day #4

Interestingly, despite getting horrible grades in Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure 2, not even taking Criminal Procedure 1, and not working for a firm that does any Criminal work I rocked that section today. I got over 70% on Criminal Procedure and over 45% on the Criminal Law portion (PMBR says getting 40% is good at this point). I hate to admit it, but when the girl next to me told me she got an 18% I felt kinda proud.

Sadly it is almost 9:30 on a Friday night and I finally semi caught up after having slacked yesterday (thanks to The Office and Grey's Anatomy). I still have tons of explanations to read for the questions I've gotten wrong this week (which I was supposed to do this week)-but that will have to wait until Monday and Tuesday of next week which I have "off" since BarBri does not start until Wednesday. I know it's bad to already be "behind" but with the commute, not feeling well, and "cleaning up" my notes like they suggest I just do not have it in me at this stage of the game. Plus most people here do not have those days off so I figure I might as well make use of them.

I also sat down today and made my weekday schedule for May, June and the First week of July. Basically it's BarBri 9-12:30, lunch, work 1-5, dinner, MBE Questions 6-8:30, read BarBri outline for the next day 8:30-11 (luckily this part I won't have to do most days since a lot of the lectures are multi-day and I can do those over the weekend prior). Weekends will be spent practicing essays, doing MBE questions, reading BarBri outlines for the next week, and occasionally socializing with actual people.

I'm also extremely irritable and unbelievably moody. For example...

• I tried to talk to boy today and I finally had to just tell him I couldn't be nice or take a joke at that minute and that it wasn't fair to him so I'd talk to him tomorrow. I know that wasn't the best solution, but I figure it's better than yelling at him for no reason.
  
• I struggle to answer any question my family asks me about the whole process since I just don't want to talk about it, explain what I am doing, or where I am. In reality I just don't think I want to talk to people who are not going through this (or who have recently gone through it) since I just do not think anyone else could understand how I am feeling right now.
• The people in my class continually get up and leave the room, allowing the door to slam VERY loudly behind them (I seriously have never heard a door so loud) plus a lot of them walk in after the breaks talking without concern for the fact that lecture has started again-every time they walk back in I shoot them a look of death and feel that the next time it happens might just be the time I have a rage black-out and scream at someone about it.
  

I suppose it's better that I realize I'm being a total bitch than to be oblivious and make no effort to control it, however I can't imagine living in this mental state for over 2 months since it cannot be healthy. At this point my hope is that once I get through PMBR, accept that I just have to do this, and adjust to all of it I will calm down for the most part-until July of course at which point I feel it's completely ok for me to be a neurotic freak.

So Excited!

[Link].

PMBR Day #3

Con Law is today. This one is up in the air. I did rather well in it both times I took it (my school had I and II), but that doesn't change the fact that it's Con Law and it inherently sucks. I am so tempted to look at an outline, but I think it's better to know what I score without any review so I know which subjects I need to put more effort into. I am not looking forward to days 4-6; Criminal Law/Procedure, Contracts and Property. Criminal Law might not be overly terrible thanks to my constant studying with Jack McCoy over the last few years, however Contracts and Property are going be depressing.

In random news I added some stuff to the sidebar, a description and a mood indicator (which, of course was not working when I went to post this), so my roller coaster of emotions during bar review can be documented.

PMBR Day #2, Part II

Anyone who thinks law students are anti-social freaks that lack even the most basic interpersonal and logical reasoning skills has not seen anything until they have seen those same people during bar review. For some reason, despite the fact that the bar is not curved, and it's months away, the competitive nature has already kicked in at a level unlike anything I've ever seen.

One girl ran out of paper today (which was admittedly bush league since it's the 2nd day and you should have a clue by now). She asked a couple people around her for paper to no avail, finally one girl gave her 2 sheets. For a 3 and a 1/2 hour lecture. I took my laptop, so I did not have any paper, but since I am nice sane¹ I offered to email her my typed notes.

The reality is, even if the bar was curved, the girl who can't remember to bring a notebook with more than a couple sheets of paper to a lecture which lasts over 3 hours is not who I am worried about on a curve. But why should we expect such high reasoning out of people who recently received their Doctorate of Law degree?

¹Relatively.

PMBR Day #2

Evidence today. If I so much as remembered a Hearsay Exception other than excited utterance (which I'm pretty sure I only remember since it was used on a Law and Order I watched the other day), I might not be so depressed about going.

UPDATE: How I ever did better on Evidence than Torts is beyond me. Fear not, I'm sure Con Law tomorrow should be laughable.

PMBR Day #1

After the first break during PMBR today I went to slide my chair in, only to cut my middle finger. It's not severe, but it's enough to be very annoying when I type-and was extremely annoying when it first happened as I tried not to hemorrhage all over my keyboard.

So now I'm trying to decide if I have a cause of action against PMBR and the Conference Center where it's being held. Clearly I am an invitee being that I'm paying over $100 a day to be there. Which, based on what they taught me today, means that they have a duty to warn of known dangerous conditions both natural and artificial, and to inspect the premises and make it safe.

Sure there are basically no damages, but I think it's worth bringing a suit in principle. If I'm going to sit there and learn the rules (against my will) I think they should be held to them.

Sigh.

Law School Commencement was tonight, and while I'm rather sure I graduated it's still anti-climactic. Not to mention that when I get the whole "we're so proud of you" bit I really just want to punch someone. I know it seem silly, since technically it is an accomplishment, but it's really hard to be proud of something which is to date the biggest mistake of your life. Or perhaps it's because PMBR starts tomorrow bright and early. Or that I'm about to enter a 2 month long adderall bender, hell, BarBri immediately after that.

Highlight of the commencement had to be my brother drinking underage-why would the law school do something silly like follow the laws?

Terrible Twos

In addition to celebrating Mother's Day today, make sure you pencil in celebrating this blog turning 2. Say what you will, but at least it's not a Hallmark Holiday.

"I know you don't smoke weed, I know this; but I'm gonna get you high today, 'cause it's Friday; you ain't got no job, and you ain't got shit to do."

I woke up thinking it was Friday. Which meant it was my last day at Bill, More and Hours. Needless to say, when I opened Outlook and it corrected me I was a little heartbroken.

16 Too Many.

How could you even keep your kids names straight if you had 17 children? My friend who has 3 kids under the age of 6 gets their names confused all the time while she yells at them.

I literally had to count (a couple times) to make sure Fox wasn't misleading me. But sure enough...

1. Joshua-19
2. Janna-17
   
3. John David-17
4. Jill-15
5. Jessa-14
6. Jinger-13
7. Joseph-12
8. Josiah-11
9. Joy Anna-10
10. Jedidiah-8
    
11. Jeremiah-8
12. Jason-7
13. James-5
14. Justin-4
15. Jackson Levi-2
16. Johanna Faith-19 Months
17. Jennifer Danielle is expected in July.
    

To make matters worse they home school. I cannot imagine you could effectively teach that many different levels of school.

My real question is, when you have 6 children in 6 years does that make them irish sextuplets?

How Does it Feel?

Someone needs to teach these kids how to appreciate a legend. Or we could beat it into them, whichever is more convenient.

Weird.

My Baby¹ brother just told me he needs to go get more coffee. I'm really impressed that he's staying up studying, but I'm also really weirded out the fact that he drinks coffee.

Additionally I tabbed my PMBR and BarBri books using a colour coded system. Blue for multistate topics; Pink for Michigan subjects; Yellow for special topics such as differentiation or essay writing skills, and for the book with multistate questions of varying difficulty (in each subject) pink is for easy, blue is for medium and yellow is for difficult. I know it seems unnecessary, but I have this extreme hatred of having to flip around books looking for subjects-particularly when there are no indexes (indexi?) in the crappy books.

¹19 year old.

I have finally figured out what I want to do with my life.

I am going to be Britney Spears' Manager, being that she recently fired hers' and is in desperate need of a life coach. I know you're thinking "Elle, are you really such a great influence?" Yes I am, this is Britney we're talking about. I'm pretty sure Joe Francis giving her advice would be better than her following her instincts.

I have never dropped a child, I don't have any failed marriages let alone two, I have never worn cowboy boots (over and over), I realize that a midriff is not exactly proper attire for a mother of two to dawn in public, I don't have substance abuse issues, and while I do appreciate a good Howie Day song now and again I get that maybe he is not the best way to rehab¹ her image right now.

Plus as a bonus qualification, in my rebellious (punky) youth I shaved my head and realize that it is not necessary to wear a wig and a hat. One or the other will suffice. Additionally I can offer assistance picking out cute edgy short haircuts once her hair is long enough.



And above all, I realize that geraniums are not appropriate nipple coverings. [Link].

¹Rehab. Ha. Ha.

Done.

The title says it all kids.

Now I just have take care of the 8 million personal things that have been piling up, clean since the floor-robe I've been cultivating is a little squalorish, kick ass in an interview Friday, work all next week, modify a velour Renaissance Painters Hat so it can be worn on the crown of my head in the most flattering way possible and wear a ridiculous outfit at graduation which includes said Renaissance Painters Hat.

Almost There.

Earlier tonight I finished the take home from Hell¹, despite it not being due until Wednesday afternoon. Plus I've already outlined for my exam that occurs Wednesday afternoon. I started thinking about the last time that I was this on the ball with finals/papers/studying and I realized it had to have been high school, which means that things have finally come full circle and I have completely reverted back to high school, maybe I can get braces again-it might be something my parents actually pay for.

¹Ok, so maybe I yet to proof read and revise, but all my arguments are written so that counts.