July 2007 Archives

This post-bar thing is great. We did two short hikes in the area late last week and then yesterday we headed for the mountains. Barb told us about a great hike to one of her favorite spots in Colorado. We took the suggestion and had an absolute blast. It was rainy and cool on the way up to the lake. Once we got there, the clouds opened up and the sun was bright and strong. It was perfect. We finished the day off with beer and barbeque in Nederland and congratulated ourselves on a most perfect day.

Right now I'm lounging around the apartment, trying to get some cleaning done. J is out of town for the week so I have the place to myself. As much as I love having J around, the peace and quiet is a nice change of pace. I think I might go mountain biking this evening, or maybe for a nice short local hike. There is a spot we found the other day - a 15 or so minute drive from the apartment, followed by a 10-15 minute hike and there is this great clearing where we saw TONS of mule deer (and baby mule deer!) the other night. I'm thinking of heading up there one evening to watch them and take some pictures. Or maybe I'll just sit on the deck and read.

Maddie and I have been invited to join my pal Katie and her sister and their respective dogs for a girls' weekend up at Katie's cabin high in the mountains. I've gotta check with J to make sure he didn't have anything big planned for the weekend, but it sounds like an awful lot of fun. The last two months have been some of the most stressful in my life .... I feel like I've earned a little R&R time. It won't last forever. One of these days I need to get an actual job (I'm working on it ...)

Pictures from the weekend's hike to come! I am trying to find a better way to post pictures on the blog ....

Well, that was not fun at all.

By the time I started the second session of the bar exam yesterday, I could no longer see straight. I couldn't make sense of anything I read, and every time the table moved because the girl I was sitting next to was filling in a bubble, I was sure I was about to pass out.

There is no better word to describe the bar exam than "grueling".

I had absolutely NO desire to go out and celebrate last night. I was that tired. But I felt like I needed to celebrate. So we compromised. We went out to Boulder to have relaxing dinner and drinks. We sat at a table on the roof of a cool little sports bar/pub ... and I realized that my ID was still in my car ... at the apartment. No amount of sweet talking would get the waiter to give me a beer, so while J sipped on his REALLY TASTY (and surprisingly hoppy) amber ale, I drank water. It was ok tho. One beer and I would have probably fallen asleep with my face in my portabello ravioli.

The upside of the exam was that I met all sorts of cool people. There is a very definite camaraderie among people thrown into that sort of situation. All of a sudden, I had 1,000 new best friends. And I think all of my new friends were very happy to be done.

Now I can get back to my life. The laundry, which hasn't been done for a couple weeks, is starting to take up arms. The dog desperately needs a bath. I have been selfish the last month or so. Emails have gone unanswered and good friends have gotten married without much notice from she-who-studied-for-the-bar. I'm not sure I much like the person I was for the last couple weeks. We have friends in Denver who we have yet to see since we moved here and there are tentative plans to head to the mountains with said friends for some relaxation. There are new friends that we have made since we got here, that I can't wait to hang out with in a context other than barbri or the dog park.

This morning I feel relieved, and a little bit like I've been hit by a train. Once I get my brain back (not sure when that will be), I will have all sorts of things to tell you. Stay tuned for posts on why I'm not doing Ironman next year, the mess that is this year's Tour de France, and a sappy story on why you just can't wait to be happy.

One day down, one to go. And I survived.

Nine essays and two performance tests and I am officially halfway through the bar. Today was the day I was nervous about. Tomorrow is all multiple choice, and I have a pretty good handle on all six subjects they can test on. Today was all essay ... and they could test on fifteen different subjects?! I had no idea what to expect. Tomorrow I am prepared for.

The good news is that there was no commercial paper question, and no trusts question. We got hit with admin (my favorite!), federal civ pro, crim pro, contracts, agency, corporations, evidence, family law, and something else that I can't remember at the moment. There were a few questions that I felt absolutely stellar about and a few that were a little shaky but I don't think horrible. And I made it through all of the questions with a minute or two to spare, which I think is a good thing (either that or I missed a lot of stuff that I should have included). I'm feeling pretty confident right now.

Oh, but its a grueling process. When all was said and done I was at the test site for almost eleven hours today. Eleven hours. That's a long damn time. We were getting plenty of sympathy from the procters, which was actually kind of nice. And thank god Colorado is not as anal as some states - food, drinks, sweatshirts, gum ... all allowed. I have already heard some horror stories from some of my friends who took the exam elsewhere that they spent most of the test ridiculously hungry or thirsty or whatever.

It wasn't fun, but it wasn't that bad either.

The best part about the day was that I got to see so many people I knew. There are quite a few people I graduated with living in Denver now, and it was so nice to see a friendly face. I also ran into a friend I made at barbri, a guy I used to work at a gear shop with, and a chick from my study abroad program from two summers ago. I wouldn't call the bar fun, but its not horrid either. And WOW there were a LOT of people there!

And at this time tomorrow I will be done. My mountain bike is freshly tuned and sitting in the garage just waiting for my attention. The road bike is ready to go. Every time I go into the garage the camping gear nudges me (ok, that's because our garage is TINY and I can't help hitting the camping gear every time I go to my car) and says "when do we get to go to the mountains?". Soon. Very very soon.

I was emailing back and forth last night with one of my law school friends who also happens to be taking the bar tomorrow when he informed me that 'he has never been this nervous' in his life. I tried to by sympathetic, I really did. And I thanked my lucky stars that I have done things that seem a whole lot more scary than taking some little test.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a little nervous. And I'm really looking forward to this all being over, but this doesn't rise to the level of 'scariest thing ever" for me. No matter how badly this goes, it is not going to hurt me physically. I'm not going to drown or crash or end up in the medical tent with an IV in my arm. After 2.4/112/26.2 the bar exam seems a little tame.

But there is a downside to the comparison. The great thing about Ironman is that even at its worst, you know it will be over in one day. It may take 17 hours of pain and suffering (or in the case of my last one, 15 hours of pain and suffering and delerium followed by a car ride and a trip to the med tent), but at midnight that night, you are done. Tomorrow night I will be exhausted and grumpy ... and only halfway done!

In the days before Ironman you are always questioning your preparation but you learn to set those fears aside, because at this point, there is nothing you can do about it. Please believe that that is a useful lesson to have learned going into the bar exam. There is absolutely nothing I can do about the last two months. While I think my preparation went pretty well, there are a few things I would do differently if I had to go back and do it all over again. Does that matter now? Absolutely not. What's done is done and the only thing I can control is where I focus my energy for the rest of this evening and what I put on paper tomorrow and Wednesday.

Think happy thoughts for me ... I think I will need them!

It started with a bum shoulder. I had no idea what I did to deserve this nagging pain, but there it was. Making me wince when I moved my arm in a certain direction and keeping me from going to the gym. The worst of all was when I woke up in the middle of the night with a searing pain in my shoulder. I must have been sleeping on it wrong and wow it hurt! I popped two Ibebroken tablets in my mouth and crawled back to bed, resisting the encroaching feeling of faintness.*

The good news is that the shoulder seems to be on the mend. The bad news is that I have a bug in my eye.

Sort of.

A few days ago I was sitting on my deck reading a Con Law outline when I noticed what looked like a gnat or a flea hopping around on the lense of my sunglasses. I took off my sunglasses but still saw the bug. I took out my contacts and still saw the bug. Its three days later and I still see the bug.

As any prudent seeker of medical advice would do, I turned to Google**. And according to Dr. Google I am suffering from a floater. And the damn thing is driving me batty. Every time I look around, I see it. And I try to focus on it. And because it is inside my eye and moves with my eye I CAN'T focus on it. Its like some sort of Chinese water torture and apparently these things can last forever. Oh, and they are a normal part of the aging process. The aging process?!?! Now I'm aging?! This just keeps getting better and better!

A black speck floating around in my field of vision for two full days of sitting for the bar exam just might be enough to drive me to drink ...

* I'm a fainter. Especially when it involves waking up in pain.
** Note that I do plan on asking my eye doc about it the next time I am there, and if more spots show up I will most certainly be making an appointment earlier than planned

I had many strange obsessions as a child, one of which was snakes. For quite a while I wanted to be a herpetologist when I grew up. I knew the "snake people" at the local pet store and had a pet snake of my own. I'm not afraid of snakes.

But dammit if I didn't just about jump out of my skin today when we had a close encounter with that most mythical of North American reptile ...

This evening J and I were at one of the open space parks, spinning along happily wondering if we were going to get rained on (we did), when all of a sudden I noticed the rocks on the trail in front of us didn't quite look right.

STOP!!! SNAKE!!!

I've seen plenty of snakes on trails and roads and bike paths before. I've even had plenty of experience with poisonous snakes (copperheads were a regular occurence back home). But nothing could prepare me for my first run in with a rattlesnake.

He didn't rattle. I'm not even sure if he saw us. He just kept slithering across the trail. But dammit if it didn't leave me shaken for quite a while. Maybe it was because this guy was quite a bit bigger than the biggest copperhead I've seen. Maybe its because the villanous snake in any good story (at least that didn't take place in biblical times) is always a rattlesnake.

I think I need to start working on my bunnyhopping ....

(clicky for bigger image)

This weekend had the potential to be very un-fun. I had a practice MBE (multistate multi choice bar exam) today that ate up seven hours of the day today. I have EIGHT HOURS worth of bar review class tomorrow. On a Sunday. Apparently noone told the bar review folks that Sunday is the day of rest. I have eight hours of bar review on Monday and then the normal three hours on Tuesday and then hooray! Wednesday off! ... but that's only because its the 4th of July or I'm sure we would be going straight through the week. The barbri folks are slave drivers I tell you!

To reward myself for my diligent work this morning and to pre-award myself for the upcoming days of hell, I took myself, the dog, and the fiance on a hike this evening. We headed to Eldorado Canyon State Park and hiked the seven mile round trip trail that goes from the trailhead out to South Boulder Creek and back. It was amazing.

It was also hot. I was fine but I worried a bit about the black mutt. She handled it like a trooper. We stopped often in the shade and she got lots of water. After seven miles she was still pulling. She loved it.

It was a wonderful afternoon full of beautiful scenery, my two favorite people* in the whole world and NOT studying for the freakin' bar exam. It was also the best workout I've had since the mountain bike race a few months ago. It felt good to get my butt kicked again.

After our hike we went and had buffalo burgers and beer. THAT was a good day.

Josh's pictures from the hike are here.

*dogs are people too!