Bye-Bye Bar, Bye-Bye BarBri

Last week I took the Texas Bar Exam. As expected, it was a humbling beast of an exam. For those who are curious about what exactly the bar exam consists of, here is the schedule as it appeared on my admission ticket:

On the first two days of the exam, the exam proctors were really strict about collecting all exam materials before we left, but on the third day they told us to take the exam booklets with us as a "souvenir." Huh? I already have plenty of mental souvenirs I can't seem to get rid of; I do not need physical evidence that will pop-up unexpectedly and frighten me. In fact, I finished the last day feeling pretty confident. I do not want to review the exam only to realize my errors, thereby destroying my ignorant state of bliss. Despite all of this, for days I could not bring myself to throw away these stupid exam books. Thus, I convinced myself that taking a picture would make it okay to throw them away. Since I have a picture, why not add it to this otherwise boring post.

And since I'm posting random pictures, I might as well add this rather artistic photo of all the earplugs I found while cleaning out my study materials. I promise I only have two ears....

What the bar exam really consists of is weeks upon weeks of studying a ton of material and then taking the exam only to realize that 1) your nerves really get in the way, 2) there is some stuff you didn't study at all but should have, and 3) making up a rule of law is unexpectedly easy when under pressure. I also learned a lot of life lessons about property: Don't sell the same piece of land more than once, don't forget to record your deed, don't keep loose wild animals on your land, etc.

During the week leading up to the bar exam, I had a minor panic moment that resulted in frantic packing of books and food and moving my study location to the library. I blame it on consumer law essays. Luckily, I didn't cry. Everyone seemed to have a crying story: "I ran out of shampoo in the shower and I started crying," or "I locked myself out of my study room and started crying." I don't have a crying story, but I do have this picture from the break room on the third floor of the law library to which I contributed the flames:

At first someone drew a picture a rainbow and wrote "heaven" on they days directly after hell, but then some pessimistic soul bashed that dream by erasing the rainbow and reminding everyone of the waiting game, referring to the fact that we must wait until Nov. 5 for the exam results. I chose to focus on "675: Do it." That's the minimum passing score.

The day after the exam, I happily returned my study books to BarBrti, the company from whom I took a preparation course. The fate of my books was the back of a pick-up truck with everyone else's books:

What a fitting ending. All that knowledge and all those books seemed so important before the exam, but now....hmmm. What's a contract again?