How do you mess that one up

Hey, we all have our bad days at work, but WOW.

What I really worry about

I wake up at 4 am in a cold sweat. Am I freaked out about the Bar Exam that happens in 3 days? Nope. I've just had a nightmare about being back in law school (which I imagine will follow me for the rest of my life).

In my dream, I was back in the last month of my first year of law school and I, apparently, had not been to class since the first day of the semester (OK, it does sound like me...). But here's the twist: A classmate I bumped into around town told me there was a HUGE paper for Criminal Law class due that day. Of course I hadn't even heard about this paper, let alone written it. So what did I do? I asked my friend to drive me to the hospital so I could fake an illness and be excused from the paper.

The kicker? A good 9 hours later after all this nonsense, my friend tells me that it won't work because I had pulled this same trick on the same professor during the first semester. Damn my dreaming luck.

My mind is a brittle little guy.

Wake-up juice

Bar study keeps you up most nights when you're a month behind the scheduled assignments, trying to play catch-up two weeks before the test. Even more so than in law school, I've been on a constant diet of caffeine to keep my head above water and in a book.

So I've come to some conclusions about the best way to achieve my newest high:

1. Espresso drinks are not only horribly overpriced, but completely ineffective for long-term study sessions
2. 7-11 coffee is far superior to Starbuck's coffee, and cheaper
3. Red Bull is best for sipping while you study (Coffee gets cold and gross if you sip it too long. Seriously, it's like cold shit soup in a cup after 30 minutes sitting out.)

I hope you never have to use these tips.

Bar review sucks

For someone so unsure of whether to practice law, I sure have been killing myself studying for this stupid bar exam, lately.

I went from not wanting to practice at all, to thinking about it, to deciding to take the bar in February, to scrambling to get my shit together for the July exam. How did I get to this? No idea. Maybe a fear of not knowing what to do with my life coupled with the crippling debt of law school that I need to start repaying soon (incidentally, I'm now almost $100k in debt).

I started a home-study bar review program that normally takes students upwards of 2 months to complete when moving at the normal pace. There's less than a month until the exam. Now, I could've started early June but the nice people at the bar loan place decided to hold my loan application up in bullshit for the last month. Thanks, guys!

Despite all this, I'm surprisingly nonchalant. Let me try and relate to you how much I care about passing this exam. I care about passing this exam about as much as I cared about Pluto being declassified as a planet. I care about passing this exam about as much as I care about the Sex and the City movie. I care about passing this exam...well, about as much as I cared about succeeding in law school.

So I don't exactly have a lot tied up in this exam. It's not like I've got a job waiting for me if I pass. No, I'll still be groping blindly to get my foot in the door at some place that I don't care about but I pretend to be totally psyched about in front of the recruiters. Seriously, every law firm is exactly the same. They all do boring law stuff and they're all named after 5 or 6 boring, old white guys who could give a shit if their employees live or die as long as they're not bothered.

I'm not jaded.

If I actually do pass this exam then I suppose I'll have to continue this ridiculous game.

The pinnacle of apathy

It's 4 am and I've got someone else's outline (for a class I rarely attended) on my lap. That can only mean one thing: finals.

Yes, folks, at 8:15 am I will be sitting down for the start of my 6th and final round of law school finals. I have only been to this particular class about 5 times, and on the rare occasion that I actually did show up I spent the entire class period pondering important, class-related topics such as Heath Ledger's death (RIP) and how to win at Minesweeper on Expert difficulty (I still can't get a faster time than 440 seconds, dammit).

My point in all this is that, through the constant onslaught of sleep-inducing tests administered to me by this fine educational institution, I've completely and irreversibly lost any fear of tests, whatsoever. In fact, I've come to think of tests not as an assessment of my mastery of the subject matter, but as an exercise in pure endurance. Every time I sit down to take an exam, I'm furious that I'm losing 3 hours of my life in order to drudge through something so tedious. Don't ask me to name a better way to measure my knowledge of the material taught, but the current method is KILLING me inside.

So while I'm sitting in a classroom full of stressed-out, over-caffeinated kiss-asses, trying to stay awake long enough to finish this 3-4 hour long traverse through bullshit, think of me and shed a tear.

April Fool's

Gotcha.

This is a serious problem.

Guys, gals. Scrubs is a terrific TV show. So good, in fact, that I always have to watch it if it's on. This becomes an addiction, clawing away at the time I have to do anything productive in life. Will Turk have a mustache in this episode? Will this end up being a sad episode (I hate the sad ones)? When it's over can I flip to WGN or Comedy Central or TBS for another episode?

My work and people I love suffer greatly.

On the subject of chicken sammiches

A recent Burger King commercial sparked a debate (in my own head):

Would I rather be a chicken sandwich or a hamburger?

Pro-Chicken:

• Chicken is delicious
• You might not get eaten as often as a hamburger

Pro-Burger:

• Burgers are more popular
• You don't get stale as quickly as chicken sandwiches

In the end, though, I decided it best to remain human.

Seriously, everyone

Standing in large groups in the middle of the stairwell might be OK with you, but it's extremely inconvenient for the rest of us who are trying to get to class. Move your asses to the common areas or AT LEAST to the hallways. You'll make it through life with much less dirty looks thrown your way.

Let's talk about dating law students

I can understand someone who doesn't go to law school making this mistake but WOW when someone in law school dates another person in law school...it's like they're trying to breed assholes. Just the thought of another arrogant, know-it-all, cutthroat bastard out there makes me cringe. Law students, you've got to ask yourself, "Do I really want to date a male/female version of me?" Please. The only thing more annoying than a law student is a 2-pack of law students walking around giggling and talking about the funny thing you read in your Con Law textbook. End of rant.

Dear reader:

(Yeah, that's singular)

New posts coming soon. Hold in your enthusiasm, please.