Put on the Glasses

When I went through the graduation ceremony back in May a part of me was very scared that they would take my new degree away. At the time we all walked across the stage in caps and gowns, none of us had received our grades for the final semester. If I had, for some reason, failed my Wills final, then I would not have been able to take the bar exam. It was a scary thought. So, I was very excited to get my hands my new diploma! It finally feels real. The same day I picked up my diploma, I also picked up my award! At the graduation ceremony, waiting in a cramped, hot room with all of the other graduates I was flipping through the program. My name was listed as the recipient of the Abraham "Avi" Mund Prize for Excellence in Information Technology and the Law. I was baffled. I had no idea that I was getting an award. The award wasn't handed out at the ceremony and I slowly forgot about it as the bar exam grew near. Then I got an email stating that I could come get my ...

Getting through the nightmare that was the bar exam took help. There are certain things that I relied on in getting through the long hours of studying. 1. Swedish Fish . Gummy deliciousness. 2. A sense of humor . I needed to laugh quite a bit to not get too stressed out. Here is a picture I took of some of my condensed notes. Dead center in the picture you can see that I mistakenly typed "Asses" instead of "Assets." Freudian slips crack me up. 3. Brian's cooking ! Here is a picture of one of the many meals Brian made for me so that I would not subsist on coffee and Cheetos. 4. And last but not least... Brian ! He cooked, cleaned and quizzed me with flashcards when I broke down crying saying I was going to fail two days before the exam. I couldn't have survived without him!

It is a happy, if slightly blurry, Alicia post bar exam. Brian believes that people reading my blog want to see more pictures of me, so here is the first in a while. You can see the bags under my eyes, still present from the two gruelling days of questioning. However, I am happy for it all to be over! Yay!

The bar exam has finally ended for me. It was two full days, Tuesday and Wednesday. I am completely drained of energy but the happiest that I have been in a long time. I can finally think about things that don't involve the exam! I plan to post more tomorrow when I am more lucid and excited to tell the tales. For now, this is a picture of the hotel where I took the exam. It is the Brooklyn Marriott downtown. I lucked out with this location. If I lived in Manhattan I would have had to sit for the exam at the Javits Center. I took my practice test there and it was like sitting in a big cement parking garage. Also, Javits has metal folding chairs for the exam takers. At the Marriott I was able to take the exam with significantly fewer test takers. It was held in the Grand Ballroom which had crystal light fixtures and carpeting. Also, the chairs were awesome velvet red cushy chairs with gold trim. I was totally comfortable. To hold you over for my next post on the bar exam...

I have studied far too much. At the same time, it feels as if it is not enough. Luckily, I am at that nearly relaxing point where it is useless trying to study more because the exam is tomorrow. That and my brain is about to explode with all of the rules stuffed into it right now. Yesterday, I left the apartment to go to the grocery store and I realized that it was only the third time I had left the apartment in a week. I had left on Friday to go to Walgreens and on Tuesday to run to school to pick up my diploma. That is it. I can't wait for the test to be over so that I can get back to living my life! Maybe I can resume going on walks without the guilty feeling that I should be reading about torts. Pictured here are the books that I used to study this summer. They are all from BarBri and do not include the big stack of condensed notes that I printed from their lectures to study from. I am very excited to get rid of these books because I am tired of looking at them. A lot...

The bar exam is imminent. As such, I will not be able to post for the next week. The bar exam starts next Tuesday morning and Wednesday afternoon. I am sorry that I have been remiss in my stories as of late. Unfortunately, most of my time is spent studying, thinking about studying or staring at a wall like a zombie. Poor Brian has been taking care of me. He now makes all of my non-bar related decisions for me. He decides what we will eat, what we will watch on TV, where we should go so that I can get out of the apartment, etc. Thank you, Brian! If he wasn't here, I don't think I would have even remembered to eat anything. He's the best. Back to the main point: I will post again when the bar is done and my brain returns to normal. Wish me luck!

I like to scan the Craigslist legal job postings for fun. Yesterday I found a particularly comical one called "Horrific Lawyer Needed for Dirty Job." Unfortunately, it has already been taken down. Here is what it said: "Looking for a lawyer to scare people and stimulate them to return money." I do not feel like going into the vast array of possible ethical violations that this man may be proposing. However, a job post like this reminds me why people hate lawyers: they think we spend our time threatening people. While I am on the subject of hating lawyers, I thought I should point out that if you like Dickens novels, and you hate lawyers, Bleak House is a terrific read. It condenses all of the reasons why the public hates lawyers. I had to read it in my Law and Literature class and I am amazed that Dickens was able to write such a sharp critique of the profession. I am not a Dickens fan but my Professor proclaimed that every lawyer must read Bleak House . ...

There is less than a month now until the bar exam. Considering I have fielded several requests for an explanation of what the bar exam actually is, I thought that I would explain it here. The bar exam consists of two full days (unless you are applying for multiple jurisdictions). One day is entirely state specific law and the second day is devoted to multistate topics. The bar exam as I am taking it in New York will break down as follows: Day One (NY Day) AM Session 3 New York Essay Questions 50 New York Multiple Choice Questions PM Session 2 New York Essay Questions 1 90minute Multistate Performance Test Day Two (Multistate Day) AM Session 100 Multistate Multiple Choice Questions PM Session 100 Multistate Multiple Choice Questions For the New York day must must know Agency, Commercial Paper, Conflict of Laws, Corporations, Domestic Relations, Equity, Federal Jurisdicti...

Every day I ride the subway and I have a developed a mental list of my pet peeves on the subway. Here goes: People who lean on the pole as if they are the only ones who want to use it. Small screaming children, ignored by parents Mariachi bands, flutists and ukulele players Beggars like the one today who just repeated, angrily, "Anyone care?! Anyone care?!" People who shove you out of the way to beat you to an open seat People who litter, magazines and bottle especially People with those cell phones that act as walkie talkies who yell into their phones "Yeah, I'm on the bridge, I can't hear you! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Guess what buddy, I can hear you. Girls with headphones on that proceed to dance and sing on the train Wanna be rappers. I once had to listen to a whole song that consisted of "I'm a n****r cause I'm black," repeated, loudly in my ear for the length of my ride. People who wipe their nose and then grab the pole with the sa...

Every night I watch Judge Judy. Every night I use the show as a study tool. I get to watch arguments and fact patterns in: domestic relations tort law (negligence, battery, defamation, etc.) contract law evidence agency partnership real property law landlord/tenant law I am addicted to it. I watch and try to formulate the legal theory on which the parties are basing their claims. My favorite claims are those based in landlord tenant law. Most landlords that come onto the show do not seem to understand their responsibilities to their tenants. For instance, they invariably believe that they get to keep hundreds of dollars of a deposit just for picking up trash in the apartment. They don't pay a cleaning service or have an invoice, they simply believe that the deposit is theirs. Brian and I also laugh heartily at the defendant's dragged onto the show because they never paid their friend the bail money that was lent to them. They always try to argue that their friend just ga...

I have been buying wedding magazines left and right. I love them. I feel like I have this grand excuse to purchase any wedding magazine that I see simply because this is the only point in my life where I can! With all the reading, I have some ideas: I think I want the wedding colors to be orange and green. Orange because I love orange and I don't care how anyone else feels about it. With that I would have either olive green (like this blog) if it is the fall or lime green if it is spring. I am thinking that I want to have the wedding at a hotel in Vegas or a nice independent chapel such as the Wynn , the MGM Grand or Little Chapel of the Flowers . I am thinking of making my own invitations but I don't know if that would be too time consuming. Any thoughts? None of these ideas are set in stone. I just find the thought of the wedding to be a welcoming distraction from the drudgery of bar review. Today I had to study the law of trusts. It is dry, dull stuff. Tomorrow I ...

Sex and the City This was actually better than I expected. It stayed true to the show and it did not feel like I was watching several shows glued together (the fate of many shows turned movies). There were a couple of points where I felt they lingered on the designer names a bit, but overall I would recommend it. Wanted If you go to see this movie, shut off your mind and let go of reason. The plot, the action, the physics, are all full of holes. However, it was a fun movie to watch. I laughed heartily several times and walked out of the theater happy. The movie was directed by the same Russian that brought us the Nightwatch series. Wanted , like Nightwatch , has the same Matrix -style magical realism that is a fun break from reality. Wall-E Every year I see the new Pixar animated film. I have followed their work through the years including Toy Story , Monsters, Inc. , and Ratatouille . Every year I am surprised by how much I enjoy their movies. This year, with the release of...

We are officially obsessed with the cat in the backyard. We fed her chicken and named her Oreo. Here are some pictures of Oreo curled up in Brian's chair outside.

Brian has been making me popovers quite a bit recently. It is all thanks to Alton Brown making popovers on the Food Network show Good Eats, which has become Brian's favorite new show. In the past few weeks Brian has made me popovers, a dutch baby , kebabs, grilled pineapple, milk shakes, cookies, chipotle cashew chicken, steak, seared scallops, ratatouille and poached eggs. My life is awesome.