THe most improtent factor...

After a desperate dash to "learn" administrative law, I put it all on the line this afternoon. It was time for the final. And wow, did it not go beautifully. I was prepared for it to be difficult, but somehow not in the exhausting way that was the result.
The practice exam I took was designed to be done in 3 hours and 15 minutes. It has 2 pages of facts to read and 7 questions to answer. The actual exam today was a strict 3 hour time limit. It had 5 pages of facts and 7 questions to answer. Some questions had multiple parts. When I looked up from question 3 and saw that I was already an hour into the exam I knew I had to hurry it up. There was no longer time for complete explanations, addressing possible counter-arguments, or even correct spelling. The further I got into the exam, the more time-pressured things became, and the less coherent it all was. In one instance, the third element (of a 3-part test) that I analyzed I realized was actually the best argument for me so I wrote, "This is actually the most useful and most important factor, so they should emphasize this" and moved on. I had no time for anything else. (I hope my professor enjoys spelling errors and errors in capitalization, such as beginning a sentence "THe most improtent factor...")
I made it onto the final question with about 6 minutes to go and promptly brain dumped onto the page. I didn't get the entire way through my answer; I had to stop typing when time was called. That was the first final that has ever happened to me on. The first final I have ever just written constantly for three hours. It was exhausting. There were a few times during the exam where I thought "Maybe I'll come back to this at the end to make the argument better." I am so glad I decided against doing that - I never would have made it back.
I left the exam with a jaw muscle strained from clenching it too much. No joke. It took me about 30 minutes to wipe that "What the heck just happened??!?!!" feeling. I think this was common to everyone. Two of my friends left questions entirely blank. Smart kids too, not morons or burned out 3Ls taking the class pass/fail. At least I answered all the questions!

After the afternoon final everyone I talked to was unhappy with their exam. Including people who were not taking the same final as me. People in Family Law, National Security Law, and International Law all exchanged sob stories with me. It was a rough day for exam-takers. One of my friends realized she was 500 words over the word limit for her exam and spent copious time removing them. That sucks. You did too much work, now do more work to undo all the hard work you put in!

Why is the office holiday party such a large thing in pop culture? That's such a random activity to give so much attention to (see Die Hard 1). I've never even been to an office holiday party, nor had an office with a holiday party I had the option of attending! But I imagine they are booze-soaked affairs where co-workers will act scandalously and someone will put his job in jeopardy by speaking honestly to the boss after one too many vodka sodas.

I am moderately perturbed at how quickly people comment on facebook posts. I'm not a huge commenter myself, but the rapid comments make me feel like something posted two hours ago is stale and no longer merits my input. They say life is slower in the South, perhaps facebook should take a cue from the South and sloooooow down. Or maybe I'm just becoming an old geezer. I don't even fully understand Twitter! Really!

A Tale of Two Bar Nights

Two bars, both alike in dignity (lacking), in fair DC where we lay our scene...

I know I am mixing my references, let's get over it. Thursday night and Friday night were both bar nights with different results. Thursday night was bar review. I hung out with some people from law school, then some others, then some others, until a group of about seven of us split two taxis to a bar on U Street. This was actually my first cab ride since getting to the city. I'm not made of money here, and splitting a cab with three other people makes it just about as cheap at the metro. I can certainly say that I appreciate cars so much more now that I don't have one. I miss having a car. Well we made it to the bar around 11:30. Usually I'm watching Top Chef, getting ready to go to bed and contemplating my midnight snack by then. But, given my current state of mind, I was resolute that I would stay out like I was still in college. No excuses, play like a champion. Well I did, let me tell you. I think most of our conversation was on the unfortunate topic of law school, but I suppose that is bound to happen when that's pretty much all you know you have in common. I need to start watching more college football so I can participate in that common conversation as well. But I somehow can't seem to care enough. I ended up talking with three guys about something that involved gun rights and the Israel/Palestinian conflict. I'm not quite sure what it was, but I'm sure I was not the best conversationalist at that point. Well the four of us realized it was 2am, and we had better take a cab back. We did, and the cab driver tried to take us on a circuitous route home, thinking we wouldn't notice. Well we did, jerk. It's just good that there were four of us and at least one of us was paying attention to where he was driving. Naughty cab driver.

Thankfully Torts was canceled Friday morning, leaving me to sleep until 10 and to stumble into Criminal Law, very dehydrated, at 11. I would be lying if I said I was in the mood to watch a documentary about a woman who was executed in Oklahoma and then listen to the class voice their views about capital punishment. But my will does not govern the class, so that all happened. I really needed more coffee (and water) when class was over, and I certainly was not in the mood to accept an invitation to go to the Holocaust Museum that afternoon. Basically I wasn't in great shape.

My head vaguely hurt until around 8pm, when I found myself drinking a margarita at a Mexican restaurant in Bethesda with Damien. I did not want this margarita, it was placed in my hand. "Will, what do you want to drink?" "Water." Bam, I got a margarita. This was a harbinger of the rest of the night. Dinner was three incredibly filling enchiladas. Because I was actually paying for a restaurant meal for once, rather than cooking for myself, I thought I should eat it all. Well, I didn't, and I felt like crap for having tried but at least I got my money's worth. Then, after some Street Fighter and TMNT on the PS3, Damien and I made our way to Adams Morgan. We went to some rooftop bar first which was cool in principle, but contained way too many intoxicated 30 year-olds acting like they were 19 for me to be comfortable. I ordered a beer at this bar, it was the last drink I would buy that night, and I couldn't even finish it I was still so damn full of chicken enchiladas. I told Damien this bar sucked, made him chug his drink and finish my beer and we left. After a long walk (about twenty feet) we went into another bar where we met up with Damien's friend and two of her friends. At first we were standing around because there were no seats, but we stealthily usurped a table from a few drunk guys. We Green Beretta-ed that table. It helped that one of them appeared to be an Irish football (soccer) hooligan who couldn't stand up straight. One of Damien's friends, (Mollymae what kind of name is that? She sounds like an insurance company) got hit on by some creepy guy. I am glad that this happened only because I got to see the creepy guy's creepier friends, who had the creepiest (aha, I got to the superlative!) moustache in the history of facial hair. No joke, this looked like it was created on an etch-a-sketch. It was uneven and slanty and all kinds of bad things. He didn't even look like a pedophile (as bad moustaches will do to you), it was more like World War Moustache just happened above his lip and you kind of felt bad. Bad enough to contemplate finding the local CVS and buying him a razor. The other friend of Damien's friend was a Mexican guy who was pretty chill. We talked about Mexican-American relations and such. At one point he whipped out his passport, showed the picture (not a good one) around, and asked "Would you let someone who looks like this into your country? I wouldn't." So things were going alright, when Mexican friend decided to be chummy and buy all 5 of us a round of shots. Tequila shots. Ugh. Let me be clear, I was drinking a glass of water in this bar. I did not really want to drink, and I really did not was to drink tequila. But I'm not going to be ungracious, it's not like I have a problem with drinking. I just wasn't thrilled with the fact that I was moderately hung over all day. Alright, tequila, great. Then someone else bought a round of jello shots. Then someone else a round of car bombs. Then another round of jello shots. Where is this hospitality when I do want to drink? It must be nice to have a job and thus money to buy rounds for people, 'cause I certainly don't do that. But I was gracious for every round, though I went easy on the jello shots and spilled about half of my car bomb on my shirt because the shot glass displaced too much beer. Turns out it was 3 am. I was yawning. But I was yawning at 9 pm also and thought I wouldn't make it past midnight. Jeez, what happened? We left the bar and immediately found ourselves in the middle of sketch-ville. Adams Morgan at 3 am on a Friday night can be summed up best by a comment I made when two girls ran out in front of our taxi: "Wow, there are literally hundreds of bad decisions happening right now." Status report: 3 am, in a taxi. I was still full of Mexican food, now also full of various badly paired drinks which were bought for me, full of urine because of how much water I drank, and exhausted. I finally got into bed around 3:30 and had weird dreams until waking up this morning a little before 11. I realize now that I need coffee, and this will be a difficult problem to solve when I'm not eating anything on Monday. Oh well, bring it day of fasting.