batman and the bar

so, its been awhile since i last posted. some rather large life events have happened in the past two months that have kept me from having much time to write.  this will be the first in a three part series to get everyone caught up on what has happened. 

so i took the bar last month. it was the last three days of july.  i took it out in ontario.  it was pretty crazy.  unfortunately, there were no classic moments where someone stands up in the middle of the test and throws their laptop on the floor and then runs out crying leaving everyone looking around awkwardly until everyone hears a gunshot from the parking lot. but the bar is intense.  in ontario, there are about 5000+ people taking the bar and everyone is in one giant room frantically typing away for 3 hours at a time, 6 total hours a day.  its a little intimidating and rather daunting.  

while there were no suicides, there was an earthquake.  that was fun.  we took the bar at the convention center which is fairly near the airport.  when the building started to rumble, i at first just thought it was a large plane flying overhead.  it wasnt until it really started to roll that i realized it was an earthquake.  most other people realized it too and all 5000 went under their tables.  some brought their laptops with them under the table. not to protect their laptop, but so that they could continue typing while under the table.  only a small handful didnt duck under the table, but once the rolling stopped, everyone in unison bounced up back to the table and immediately began typing away frantically trying to pick back up where they were and worried that we had all just lost a precious 30 seconds that we so desperately needed.  unless you are the girl next to me that finished about 20 min early every day.

so the interesting thing about the bar, and the somewhat intimidating thing is that you are in a room of about 5000 people and you just dont know anyone's story.  around half are from non-accredited law schools, which is great because the percentage of those people that pass is really low, so the more of them the merrier.  but take the girl next to me for example:  who finishes early?  i immediately assumed when she finished early that she has no idea what she is doing and therefore probably failed.  but the guy in front of me also finished early which made me question him too until i found out the last day that 1. he is a byu law grad (good school), 2. he has a pending offer at a large law firm in orange county (omelveny and myers - huge firm), 3. he is going to get a masters in law at florida next year.  he chose florida because they are the number 2 program in the nation and they gave him a full ride scholarship, but he did get into nyu, the number 1 program.  how do i know all of this?  because he volunteered it all to me and everyone around us.  so the guy is a complete tool.  but sadly a smart one.  so just finishing early doesnt mean youre an idiot and probably going to fail.  it may however mean you are annoying.  

batman also came out this summer.  if you havnt seen it then please quit reading this and go see it.  i saw it opening weekend.  it was really one of the only breaks i had during bar study.  and one of the only things i had to look forward to all summer.  

so i dont know if this is a spoiler alert, probably though, so dont keep reading if you havnt seen it.  but again, if you havnt seen it, quit reading in general and go see it.  seriously, your life will be much better by seeing that movie than by reading this blog.  but i have a friend that is really into the comic books and he was telling a mutual friend of ours about how in the comic books, the joker never dies.  batman can never actually kill him.  other vililans come and go, but the joker is always around.  which is sort of ironic and a bummer about the movie.  the joker doesnt die in the film, but the actor actually did in real life.  which is a shame since heath ledger was so incredible and if the movies are following the comic books, he would of kept on reappearing in the films.  and who wouldnt love that?  

ok, so why these two events in the same post?  because they are both similar events in that both are as bad or as good as everyone told me or as i expected.  i saw the first 10 minutes of batman months ago and have been waiting in anticipation ever since.  i was very much looking forward to seeing it.  friends of mine saw it opening night and raved about how good it was.  everyone said the joker was amazing and that the movie was phenomenal.  the cool thing about it was that no matter how much hype it got, it was going to live up to it because it was that good.  it couldnt be overhyped.  few things are that good in life.  

conversely, i had been thinking about the bar for 3 years and really thinking about it for a year and it had been occupying and controlling my mind for the 2-3 months proceeding it.  again, the bar was as bad and as intense as everyone said.  people told me for 3 years that bar study is horrific and just gnarly and so draining and just a terrible experience.   but no matter how much people said about it and tried to warn me, they couldnt quite do it, because it was one of those things that couldnt be overwarned (?).  you can tell people that they are going to lose sleep and study for 14 hours a day and be all out miserable for the 2 weeks before the bar, and while those people will probably believe you, they really wont get how bad it really is until they are lying there in some cheap comfort suites hotel room on the monday night before the bar starts, completely awake, wishing they could sleep but they cant because they are just dreading and fearing the unknown that is california bar exam.  so fun. 

stay tuned for the next part in our series:  did we really just get married?  it still kind of feels like we are just dating.