random.: July 2007 Archives

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