Bar Exam and Surface Waters: World's Common Enemies....

Before I go on to blogging, can I just point out how much that girl in the top right of the picture above looks like me!?! I mean, even down to the nose and hair color and well, cleavage. Strange. Also notice that the girl has a completely blank look on her face. This is almost concrete evidence that the girl is indeed me during the bar.

Secondly, I wouldn't want to disappoint and forget to post the LAW KNOWLEDGE OF THE DAY....so here it is:

"SURFACE WATERS":Those which come from rain, springs, or melting snow, and which have not yet reached a natural watercourse or basin. Surface waters are subject to the Common Enemy Rule which means that because surface water is a nemesis a landowner may change drainage or make any other changes/improvements on his land to combat the flow of surface water. Many courts have modified the common enemy rule to prohibit unnecessary harm to others’ land.

Of all the horrible things that go on in the world, who knew that the common nemesis to all of humanity was surface water. Not hunger or poverty or disease, but that damn pesky water that starts to accumulate after a little rain.

My common nemesis is the CA bar exam, by far. Definitely more destructive than surface water.
I can't believe that it is getting down to the wire and I still have so much to do! It seems like there is less time to study or time passes by quicker but I feel like the more I try to be productive, the less and less I get done.

Can I just point out a little pet peeve? It would be nice if the writers of the MBE questions at the most useless bar review monopoly on earth would make sure that if they are using a law to justify an answer, that law needs to be mentioned at some point by them so that the students don't see it for the first time when checking their answers in the back of the book.

Starting tomorrow I am going to wake up way earlier and stay up way later and cram this stuff in before time runs out! Maybe I will take a couple tutoring sessions as well. I think I realize what my problems were the first time. They were the following:

1) I actually believed Barbri's predictions and tips --> big mistake
2) I believed Barbri when they said you shouldn't bring up irrelevant issues on the essays. Clearly not true as the bar examiners expect you to bring up irrelevant issues and then dismiss them.
3) I did too much memorization and not enough comprehension
4) I believed that they actually read your essays
5)I panicked.
6) I was under the false assumption that the Reasonably Prudent Person is both reasonable and prudent --> BIGGEST MISTAKE! The reasonably prudent person on the bar is 40 years old, miserable, never had a date in his life, and has too much time on his hands to do all these "reasonable" things that normal people wouldn't do and he "foresees" things that are way too far in the future and way too much of a stretch too be foreseeable.

So let's see if I can do things differently this time.

My goal for this evening is to see if I can conquer Real Property and Evidence. Evidence was a huge reason for why I didn't pass. I didn't do too well in Evidence in law school either. It's just not my thing I guess.

Oh and for torts, I just ask myself what I would do in the situation and then choose the opposite answer for the reasonably prudent person.

I saw the following video the other day and the first couple of times I saw it, it made me laugh. After a few times though, I starting to get teary, the video is so insanely true that it's heartbreaking. To know that you walked into something young, fresh and hopeful and walked out of it older, bitter and apathetic. ::sigh::. The guy who made the video must be a genius though.

TT

Funny huh? That part of being a shadow of your former self hits the nail on the head.

Well a bottle of No Doze and cans of Diet Rockstars are calling my name!

I leave you with this picture I found online, it made me smile, which is rare these days!!

This last week I've been a little emotional. Not for any particular reason, but I guess I'm just stressed and a little vulnerable. I've been getting teary at everything for no apparent reason.

It's hard to be broke and watch your credit that you spent so many years building up crashing around you and trying to figure out exactly how to make ends meet without having to borrow anymore money from anybody.

It's hard to think about the fact that your immediate future and perhaps even your longterm future is resting on a 3 day exam. It's not like anything else. It's pure hell and there is nothing triumphant or joyous about it. I don't think people who haven't been through it understand it, even people who are in other levels of higher education. I had a professor in college who was a JD/MD and said that by far the bar exam (and law school) were much harder than med school and all that came with it.

It's hard when no one understands the exhaustion and frustration. It's a unique pain that's all your own and even when thousands of other people go through it a year, everyone goes through it in an individual and painful way.

::Sigh:: I guess it's just hard to go through and time is ticking way too fast and I am SO not ready. The days keep going faster and faster and the learning gets harder and harder. It's not the struggle that makes it hard, we all work hard for things and fail or win, it's the pressure of knowing your economic livelihood depends on it, not to mention your reputation and self-esteem.

And the notion that I can do it and it will be over soon does not give me solace. And people telling me it will be ok does not give me any comfort.

Speaking of failure, check this out:



And if anyone knows anyone who has a copy of the documentary or can find a copy of "A lawyer walks into a bar", please let me know! Here was all I found online:

Here Kitty Kitty

LAW KNOWLEDGE OF THE DAY:

Remainder: A future interest created in a grantee that is capable of becoming possessory upon the expiration of a prior possessory estate created in the same conveyance in which the remainder is created.


So this week was actually exciting, I got a new kitty!!


Her name is Pashmak (Farsi for Cotton Candy). She is super precious and tiny. But she is also very nervous and shy. It's been quite an adventure trying to get her used to her surroundings and so far she has only been in the guest bedroom. She wasn't really eating for the first 48 hours and didn't seem to like the food I bought her so back to the pet store it was and of course her being my cat, she didn't eat any of the different types of food except for the most expensive in the pet store.

She gave me quite a scare the first day because she found a small hole underneath the drawers that are attached to the apartment wall and crawled up into the hole. So basically she was between the wall paneling and the drawers which made her completely out of my reach. I started panicking and finally Payam was able to coax her out with some of her treats. We put some heavy law books in front of the hole until we can patch it (I knew those books would be good for something someday).

But today she has been more friendly and since last night she has been trying to nap underneath my chin while I am studying.
Also, she is jealous of my laptop and tries to make me move it as soon as I put it on my lap. Here she is renaming my documents and some more random pix!






So that was my week so far. Weight loss is going well, lost 7 pounds since Friday (although I bet half was water weight since I just started re-dieting).

Tomorrow I think I will go to the Hsai Lai Buddhist Temple for some peace. My parents used to take me there a lot as a child and I always loved it. There is a lot of self-imposed ignorance in this world and sometimes when I realize that people around me have it, it's quite disturbing. I need to go to the temple and find some peace. My world view has been quite startling lately, but more on that in another post.

Dancing Away The Blues

LAW KNOWLEDGE OF THE DAY: Exculpatory knowledge in a consensual agreement between the parties that is intended to insulate one of the parties from liability resulting from his own negligence is closely scrutinized but generally enforceable as long as it is not an adhesion contract situation.

Please. Save. Me. From. This. Hell.

lol

ok, so I know that every student thinks that what they are doing is really hard and all that but seriously the CA bar exam is another thing all together. I've come to the conclusion that the bar exam is not about how much law you know but rather a Darwinistic experiment of survival of the fittest. I'm a big Darwin fan and all but I'd rather not be at the butt end of his theory.

This exam is meant to break you. You learn nothing. You memorize a bunch of stuff, that you will most likely never use or need to know from memory in your law career, then you forget it the second you walk out of the examination room (i know this is true because I remember absolutely nothing from the first time around)

It's just so frustrating when you are studying from books that contradict themselves in the law, mess up the names of the parties in the sample essays and hire lecturers who either leave out or screw up the applicable law. This test is hard enough without incompetence from this bar review company whose name I won't mention f-ing things up, (you know who they are)

However, not everything is murky these days. I appreciate everyone who has been calling to check up on me or visiting me in these really horrible days. I absolutely won't be visiting OC until after the bar, so I can use more of my time to study and not get distracted. So visits and love are appreciated as are bags of coffee and highlighters, lol.

Payam has been great in taking good care of me. I was complaining about not being able to get any physical activity in or having any fun during my 10 minute breaks so he went and bought me Dance Dance Revolution (Which I love). It's great b/c I don't feel as guilty about not making it to the gym. And if I can fit in 5 10minute dances, I'm good to go for my workout. Plus it has a workout mode that gives you faster dances and tracks your calories! It's awesome!

Now if I could just keep my house clean, my life would be way better. P.S. My x-mas tree is still in the apt, lol.

New Year, New Bar Exam

LAW KNOWLEDGE OF THE DAY: (so you can see how horrible the bar exam is)
"An action by the assignee against the assignor may also lie where the obligor successfully asserts a defense against the assignor in an action brought by the assignee against the obligor to enforce the obligation."


HAPPY 2008!!!

Not to sound negative, but really, this new year didn't really start out with a bang. For one, I've been sick with the flu so as the midnight hour struck, my fever spiked and so did my sniffling and sneezing. Fabulous.

To add insult to injury, the new year started with me having put on a few pounds over the holidays which really made me mad at myself since I worked my ass off to lose 17 pounds. Additionally, the new year started with me re-registering for the bar (wonderful use of 800 bucks) and getting my stuff together to study.

I bought an external hard drive which claims to be "one touch" and very user friendly which only means that I absolutely could not get it to work properly. Great.

It's so hard to get back into studying. A part of me really put the academic part of my life to rest and I thought I was done with it. It's really weird, after 4 months of sitting on my behind, watching tv, and playing computer games, to get out the highlighters and get to work.

The good news is, I've turned the other bedroom into a makeshift study room which I highly recommend for any bar examinees who have the extra space. I am not disciplined enough to not turn on the tv, so if I can study in a room with no tv, it's great. Also, I wish I could find a way to not be able to get wireless access in the extra bedroom, it's just so tempting to close down my Evidence notes and go to perezhilton.com instead. You would think that after all these years of higher education, I would have the slightest bit of discipline. But no. Not a shred. Zilch.

Thankfully, I have my friend Cyrano to study with, he likes to study under the same conditions as I do (i.e. we both hate to study in silence) so it makes things better.

But already I feel burned out. Way more than the first time around. Maybe I'm just out of practice.

Or maybe I should go to med school......