A post-bar exam wrap-up

It's been nice knowing that I can watch movies, go shopping, walk around, and see my friends without the guilt of the bar hanging over my head. But instead of the "I should be studying" feeling, I have the "I totally failed" feeling and it's hard to get excited about being done.

I'm such a party pooper - all I can think lately is about how unfair the MBE was, and how frequently I had to guess between three or even four choices that were virtually indistinguishable to me. I haven't been able to graciously accept a "congratulations" from anyone because I sincerely believe that none is due me. And after all the hard work I put in studying, I truly believed that it would be different.

I mean, I didn't feel quite so blindsided after the New York day. Yeah, it was a bit of a shock to see a no fault issue, and also that whole breach of the peace thing, not to mention I can never remember the damn New York rule for prior bad acts. But I knew I did my best and felt as though I had been able to convince anyone giving it a perfunctory 30-second read that I had studied and learned at least something.

But the MBE? I don't know. I've been reading in a lot of places that people blame PMBR for having infringed the so-called "copyright" belonging to the bar examiners. There's a widely rampant theory that this year's MBE was NCBEX's revenge for having figured out their usual M.O. and ripping it off to prepare us too well.

Here's what I have to say about that: fuck the NCBEX. If I go to PMBR, and learn everything they are telling me, then I am, in fact, learning the law, am I not? Which I was naive enough to believe was the point of this whole experience. I truly thought that the tricks and tips PMBR gave me were to facilitate learning an incredibly dense mass of information in a limited amount of time. On test day, I still showed up knowing what I believe I was supposed to know. So I paid some dudes who have photographic memories an additional $425 or something to help me learn it. Big deal - everyone knows that people pay money for BarBri, and even before that, people I knew in my private high school relied heavily upon Advantage Testing, which charged hundreds of dollars an hour, to prep them for both the SATs and AP exams. I couldn't afford that - yeah, I felt it was unfair, but that's life, kids. Them's the breaks.

So to penalize me for trying to learn so that I can pass, and practice, the very profession that I just spent three years of my life to learn is not only asinine but totally wrong-headed. It's mean-spirited and nasty, and I completely and totally resent it. It fucked my head up during the test, and it made me feel like I wasted both my time and money trying to get better at learning the very material I was told would be tested in the way I was told it would be tested.

And who would do this to me? Who runs the NCBEX? Lawyers. Who else? So to that guy prowling the Javits Center screaming "Face forward! Silence!" and to all the other petty douchebags who are responsible for my anger and frustration during a time when I'm supposed to be relieved to the point of exhiliration: fuck you. No, really - fuck you. As the Arabs say (a people who certainly know how to curse): may all the teeth fall out of your head, except one, and may that one tooth give you great pain.

If I saw one of you bitches drowning, good thing there is no duty to rescue, because I would not help you.