And, it's over.

That's pretty much all I have to say about that.  I have NO idea how I did; I couldn't even hazard a guess.  I will say that MBE was much harder than ANY practice questions I worked on.  I just hope I guessed right.

Anyway, the bar itself is quite the experience.  First off, we woke up around 5:15 on Day 1 to leave by 6.  We had to be there by 7:30, but I had no idea if we'd run into stupid traffic or encounter livestock blocking the highway or some other bizarre event that would ONLY happen if we didn't give ourselves enough time to get to Jeff City.  Anyway, when I say "woke up", I mean actually got out of bed, because I didn't really sleep at all Monday night.  I rolled around, staring at the clock, browsing Facebook on my phone in the dark, telling laws and rules to myself...I'm pretty sure at one point I even played the "what if I won the lottery" game in an effort to chill the eff out.  But, nothing worked.  I think all in all, I got about 2 hours of sleep spread out throughout the night.

A few of my favorite fellow bar takers:

1.  Bat shit crazy girl who told us her life story over the course of the three days.  She was one of the first people I saw on day one, and with one glance at her Shape-Ups, I knew she was something special.  According to Scott, the only people that wear Shape-Ups are old people, crazy people, or Joe Montana.

 Sup?

This girl was #2.  While we were passing time, she started talking about how she was surprised she passed her character and fitness because her husband lost his job, they had no money, they had tax problems, loan problems, and they had defaulted on several of their credit cards.  Um, hi, I'm Nikki, and I hardly know you.  And all these people around you?  They don't know you either.  Maybe you keep your real-life secured transaction problem to yourself.  She continued this for the duration of our time together, at most points just talking to the air and looking around at people to see if they were listening.

2. Meltdown girl.  I'm sure there's one (or more) every year.  This year she sat by me.  She had a constant leg twitch to begin with, and it just got worse as the day went on.  I looked over at one point and she was gripping clumps of her hair so tightly that her knuckles were ghost white, her head shaking like she was about to have a full blown-exorcism in the midst of essay number 9.

3.  The 44-year old who finished everything several hours early.  I hope it was because he sucked.  I'm a nice person, but I need to be better than some people to pass this thing.

Today sucked.  No two ways about it.  Both Scott and I were somewhat pissy during our lunch break, having just been quietly and discreetly molested for 3 hours, and facing 3 more.  We went to Chipotle for lunch, and horror of horrors, they were out of chicken and wouldn't have any for 5 more minutes.  Sadly, we didn't really have a lot of time, so Scott had to settle for barbacoa.  This did not please him, and he had some snide remarks to me about the chicken situation.  They weren't directed to Chipotle, but they were overheard by the burrito-maker.  Comments such as "they're already out of chicken and it's not even the lunch rush.  That sounds like good food management"...and the like.  He knows he was a butt, but at that point our brains weren't firing on the same cylinders as our mouthes.  Anyway, they comped his burrito, so one was free.  And then, to top it off, while we were eating an employee came over with two cards, good for two free burritos on our next Chipotle visit.  Moral of the story- be an ass, get prizes.

After making it through that, I wondered what would be the best way to illustrate my general brain function.  So I made a picture of myself.

Tiaras, unicorns, centaurs, and smeared lipstick.  A good combo.  For the record, when I was trying to come up with centaur I googled "manotaur", which is not the same thing.  But I did learn from Urban Dictionary that "a manotaur is a female that is highly fit and displaying a high level of muscularity.  A manotaur is not unattractive per se, and can still be thought of as hot to some.  However a manotaur will not fit the expected cultural norms for what a female should look like."   I know a few manotaurs myself.

After coming up with that pure masterpiece, I decided to do a representation of my dearest Scotty.

A suave man, running the rose through his moustache as he tilts his pilgram hat to one side.

As you can see, I've lost it.  I should probably stop talking.  I'm going back to relaxing now.  

Ok, I can't let this slide.

I know I said I was signing off until after the bar, but I just couldn't ignore the atrocious state of my animals.   Here's the rundown:

Our dogs needed to be groomed.  They needed a bath and they needed to be trimmed.  Last summer we took Truman to this crazy woman who lived near us, and while that time she didn't do a terrible job, we elected to go elsewhere after that.  Well, we found ourself in a bind lately trying to make sure we got them groomed before we left Columbia, because it's cheaper here and we don't know of anyone in St. Louis yet.  Our normal groomer, Groomingdales (so witty), didn't have any availability.  So we called this woman again because we were like "well she wasn't great, but she could at least trim them up to give us time to find a new groomer in St. Louis." 

For the record, this woman is a bit off.  She grooms dogs out of her house.  Her house with a poodle mailbox.  She also frequently wears shirts with poodle murals on them.  Looking back, I should have been alert to these...oddities.  But I was like "well she obviously loves dogs, so it can't be THAT bad."

I was so wrong.

Here are the before shots of our beautiful pups:

Such a handsome man!

 Aww.  My Cherry.

And....the after.

Oh. My. God.  Where did he go?!?!

 The only difference is her shaved face.  That's all she did.  And she's about 12x poofier now.

WTF?!  They look like morons. Truman looks like a retarded horse (if she had saved his mane we would have a Bernese lion) and Cherry looks like a Stegosaurus (tiny head, giant body).

I'm a true artist.  Yes, that's a saddle and reins.  And no, his tail has not in any way been digitally or physically altered.  That's actually what his tail looks like in comparison to his body.

This is my rendition of a Stegosaurus.  It's pretty close to a real one:

So, needless to say, I'm mortified for my poor animals.  Truman more so because he looks so stupid.  I feel like I love him even more because I feel so bad for him.  (Like when you look at a despondent ugly kid and feel like "I should be nice to him").  He's so self-conscious now.  He just hides behind the table, or sits quietly.  If I'm a dog groomer, and I don't know what a particular breed is supposed to look like, I GOOGLE it.  I don't just grab my electric razor and go to town.  I was so shocked when he came out that I might have even said "holy shit" in front of the lady's kid.

I know this isn't really a big deal in the giant scheme of life, and there are so many other important things going on for not only me, but everyone, but holy butt nuggets.  What a disaster.  

I guess he won't need to be groomed for about a year now.  

And with that, I'm really signing off until after the bar.

The....bar.

So, this is a little "side-note" entry.  It's not about anything that happened to me when I was little.  It's not about me narrowly avoiding the ol' rabies.  It's about what's been on my mind for about 2 months now (at least directly on my mind.  It's been in the back of my mind since I was 17 and decided I wanted to be a lawyer).  And...it all comes down to Tuesday and Wednesday.

It's a big frickin' deal.  And with that being said, it's natural that I'd be a little more on-edge than normal.  So, I present to you my list of things and/or people that I want to feel my wrath for the next 50 hours.

1. Nonsensical red light systems in the city of Columbia.  I don't understand how, when my light turns green, the light 1/4 a mile down the road turns yellow RIGHT AS I GET TO IT, to the point where I will surely run the light if I don't stop.  That's terrible planning, and as a result, you will have to deal with me flashing the bird to the innocent red-light camera watcher (if there is one, I'm sure at some point someone sees that footage).

2. The woman who was more concerned with eating her sandwich like she wanted to have sex with it than being even a decent driver.  I was following this shitty early 2000s VW Beetle- the kind normally driven by girls who have just gotten their license and want a "fun" car.  Anyway, the speed limit is 50 and this person is going maybe 35.  After a few miles of this nonsense, where she would randomly hit her brakes, because going 35 was apparently too much for her to handle, she FINALLY turned into the left turn lane at a light.  As I passed by her, I got a good look.  My god.  She was probably in her late 40s, incredibly unattractive, with mayonnaise and other assorted condiments ALL over her face.  To top it off, those same condiments were all over her hands, leaking from a disgusting, overstuffed sandwich.  Neither hand was on the steering wheel, and she had a look of pure lust in her eyes.  Now, I love food.  But I've never looked at my food like that (ok that's a lie, but it's never been food that I could eat in a car.  I like Melting Pot...what of it?).  I was beyond repulsed and it made me hate her even more that I was stuck behind her for several miles while she was trying to molest her lunch.

3.  This one's a bit bitchy, but right now I can't stand people who think their freshman summer English/basic math/sociology test is anywhere CLOSE to the bar exam.  People who are like "oh me too!  I'm so nervous about my final!"  No.  Not the same thing.  Not even close.  You and I both know that unless you're an utter moron, you can probably pass that test in your sleep.  If you can't, then it makes me seriously wonder how you got into college.  Meanwhile, while you're pondering the meaning behind Walt Whitman, I'm going to frantically try to make sure that I haven't missed anything of the approximately 500+ pages of crap I was supposed to memorize for this test.  Go away now.  Bye bye.

4.  U-Haul.  One would think (and I would say it's a correct thought) that if you have a guaranteed reservation, that meant you were all set and you just had to pick up your moving van the day you needed it. Wrong.  Apparently U-Haul decided it would be cool to overbook their reservations on what they know to be quite possibly the busiest day of the year.  So I get an email today saying I might have to "travel" to get our equipment.  I'm sorry, what?  So Scott calls and she tells us we might have to go to KC or St. Louis to pick up the truck.  Um, HELLO?!  We're moving to St. Louis you asshat.  This isn't like "oh we might need you to pick up at a different location in the city that might be a little further from your house."  This is like drive TWO HOURS to get a damn moving truck.  Unacceptable.  I'm curious to see how this works out.  But, if you're going to start a business, I don't recommend running it like U-Haul.  U-Hate making money (burn!)

Other than that, lately I've just been dealing with the general annoyances created by studying for the bar, such as having to stop to eat or shower, or the constant failure dreams I keep having where I wake up listing off the elements for PMSI priorities.  Sigh.

That being said, I have a great support system to counteract all the bad stuff.  I have wonderful friends and family.  Friends and family who understand (or at least try to understand) the stress I'm under.  Friends and family who don't try to undermine the difficulty of this by saying "you'll pass for sure!' or "don't even worry you got this!".  Friends and family who say "I have faith in you" or "I believe in you."  It makes a difference.  Because I wonder how someone is certain I'll pass when I myself don't even know.  But, when they say "I have faith in you" it lets me know that they GET me, and they get how important this is.  Even if they don't know what all it means, and what all it involves.  I'm so lucky to have people who care about me enough to think of me as I go through something completely foreign to them.  So, thank you.  All of you who have said kind words to me.  It means so much to know I (and everyone else like me) have the support of people like you.

And with that, I sign off until after this dreaded event is over.  Wednesday at 3:30pm can't get here fast enough!  Let's do this.  Good luck to all my fellow bar takers.  We can do this.


Right?

My Little Red Jeep

So here I am, studying for the bar.  Warning to those contemplating law school, or signing up for the bar- don't do it!  In the meantime, I will regale y'all with another story from my delightful childhood.


These days, kids have all sorts of crap that us 80s and earlier babies didn't.  Like multiple styles of Power Wheels Jeeps.  You know what I'm talking about.  The awesome, battery-powered, midget sized toys that little kids can drive around.  Today, there are so many different styles...Hummer, Barbie, Corvette, monster truck, I could go on.  In my day, there was either Barbie or regular old red.  When I was about 3, I found myself the proud owner of a red Power Wheels Jeep.  I remember thinking that I didn't want the Barbie one, because that didn't look like a real car.  I wanted something that looked street-legit, so if I went for a toole in the neighborhood, people would think it was a real car ("Hey what's that?  Oh my, Nikki got a new car!  How fantastic that a 3-year-old can drive a real car!").

Ok, that's obviously not me.  But, you get the idea. I could have picked up so many dudes in that ride.

It was also beyond adorable that my dad had an identical, adult-sized red Jeep at the time.  We took many a picture with our Jeeps.  We were flippin' precious.  

Anyway, I had a whole alternate universe worked out in my yard.  The front porch was my house, and I had various points throughout the front yard that were stores and things of the like.  In the back yard was the amusement park, also known as the swingset, with the swinging monkey bar that would later lead to my broken wrist.  (Swinging monkey bars are my arch-nemesis...more another time).  I made a lot of trips to the "amusement park" because it was the only imaginary place that was actually a place.  Every other place was just a random spot in the yard that I'd walk on while talking to myself.  

As for my driving skills, they were serious.  The Jeep had two gears...reverse or drive.  I was a huge fan of having the Jeep in reverse and then switching to drive without stopping first.  I enjoyed the whiplash.  Anyway, my cousin came to visit once and he HAD to drive it.  I didn't want to share, being an only child and all.  But, I caved.  After riding around with him when he went slow, even on Power Wheels terms, I showed him what was up.  I told him to park it, like one would park in a parking spot.  Then I told him to sit down and hold on.  (I don't remember the actual conversation because I was 3-4, but I'm sure it was some sort of assertive, intelligent toddler speak).  I reversed, and, without taking my foot off the gas, threw it into drive and we took off at the speed of light.  He started freaking out pretty much right away.  But that didn't stop me.  I guess top speed of 5mph was too much to handle because he started crying, and then because I was distracted by his sniffles, I was focused on him and not the yard (distracted driving at an early age!) and I crashed right into the rock circle that enclosed the well in our front yard.  He was already crying before that.  When I hit the well, he started wailing.  I just stared at him like "wtf is your problem?" He took off running into the house, and after that I didn't have to share my Jeep.  If you can't handle my style, don't get in my ride.

Anyway, Scott is looking for recliners on Craigslist, and he came across this gem:

Seriously? 

Wtf?!  SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS!  (EDIT: They apparently lowered the price.  But I still wouldn't pay 400). Who the hell needs an electric recliner?!  Are you seriously so lazy that you can't either a) push back on the cushion, or b) pull the little lever to recline yourself?  It looks like a tacky Indian souvenir shop threw up all over it.  But, then you see the surroundings in the picture, and it sorta makes sense.  

Anyhoo, I hope to update more often once this frickin' test is over.

Here's the picture of the day:

Love our pup!