Entry 15-02.04.35 in Book Two: The Fifteenth Year of the Third Millennium of the Common Era

My dreams may think this whole Bar Study Experience is killing my sense of humor. I’ll share more on that very quickly! Today was… interesting? I had a meeting at my old Law School to get help with writing Bar Essays.... but the school was on a late-start due to weather concerns… so I was hesitant and cautious, but figured- most teachers would be in anyway, and I had an appointment. So I set out… and after twenty minutes of driving without even getting past the first street; I turned around back home. If the professor doesn’t understand why I couldn’t make it in, than I don’t need her help that badly. (Luckily, she called before I could finish my e-mail to her and asked if we could reschedule due to weather.)

Of course… my luck… what should be a “tried, came back” quick story became… something more. I got back home and pulled my keys out of the ignition… where did my key chain go?! I thought for certain that I had my apartment keys attached to my car key… now it is just my car key? Holy shit, what happened? Checked everywhere= couldn’t be found. Tried to get into the apartment building… front door locked. This is a particularly bad omen as the electronic locks have been broken for months… our front door security is as reliable as a blind drunk watchman. But this time, it happened to activate. Balls! So I ring the bell to my apartment, hoping it will wake up my wife. Than I tap on the windows. Finally, she buzzes me in… and my keys aren’t in the apartment. Balls! I decide that I’ll stay in, warm up a bit, and go out to check my car again closer to when the wife has to leave for work. UPDATE: Still no keys. I checked all over my car, checked the apartment office, tore the apartment upside down, and went back and forth in the parking lot so much that I have snow blindness (very bright white world out there right now). So… something else to stress out about, I’m freaking, (temporarily) can’t see, and honestly don’t know what to do next as the only key I now have in my possession is a car key! SECOND UPDATE: My wife found my keys in the snow. Found ‘em where I was looking for ‘em. And it isn’t that her eyes are better. This makes me furious at myself and the bar exam because- this totally happens. Happened last time, happening this time, will happen next time (since it is usually a precursor to failure).... my brain has stopped functioning. I lose things, can’t find them no matter what or how long I search, someone else gets it easily… the My Brain Left moment. GAH!

So… with all that excitement… I should jump straight into studying. And I will… eventually. (I am totally to the point of “F_ck It All” as shared with me by an awesome reader). But… as with all experiences of this nature… especially with Harvey Dent in me… I’m equally F_ck It All and Freak Out. So, as with every day… I can guarantee at least 4 hours of solid, quality studying today… anything more than that? I should do it, but I can’t give any quality assurances.

So… I think my dreams are worried that I am becoming humorless; because I had a lot of Matrix+Bar Exam dreams. So, I took some of the stuff from the dream and also created some of my own from my memories of the film and… I shared some of it with classmates and friends, they pretty much all said: HA, it is great because it may be hilarious but totally accurate!!

(1) Unfortunately no one can be told what the Bar Exam is. They have to experience it for themselves.

(2) Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you need to. You’ve worked your entire life; but there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is but it’s here; this bar examination, driving you mad.

(3) The Bar Exam is a system; that system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Students, lawyers, accountants. The very people we are trying to work with and for. But until we do, these people are still part of The System and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are simply trying to outscore you.

(4) What is the Bar Exam? Control. The Bar Exam is a contrived computer-graded system of control instituted to turn hard working law students into cogs in the machine. .... I didn’t say it would be easy. But this is the truth.

(5) This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill- this part of the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill- you stay on this track and you will be terrified every day of what you don’t know that you don’t know.

(6) Students, hear me! It is true what many of you have heard. The Bar Association has gathered a legion and as I speak, that legion is drawing up tests to challenge us. Believe me when I say we have a difficult time ahead of us. But if we are to be prepared for it, we must first shed our fear of it! I stand here before you now, truthfully unafraid. Why? Because I believe something you do not? NO! I stand here without fear because I rely on what I can remember. I remember that I am here not because of the dreams that pushed me to law school, but because of the knowledge I gained at that law school. I remember that for 3 full years we have studied these subjects. I remember that for 3 full years we have been tested on these topics, and after 3 full years I remember that which matters most: that we passed every exam! Today, let us send a message to The Bar Association! Tonight, let us stand with pride. Tonight, let us embrace who we are and the path we have traveled to this point. Tonight, let us make The Bar Association remember… WE ARE LAWYERS AND WE ARE NOT AFRAID!

(7) All throughout law school, we have fought these tests. Tonight, I believe we can end it. Tonight is not an accident. There are no accidents. We have not come here by chance. I do not believe in chance. When I see a hard working law student, a difficult exam, passion. I do not see coincidence, I see work ethic. I see purpose. I believe it is our fate to be here. It is our destiny. I believe this night holds for each and every one of us, the very meaning of our lives.

ME: But since you’re part of the Bar Exam system, that means you could just be another system of control. I suppose the most obvious question is… if you profit off of students taking the exam, how can I trust that you want to help me pass?
Oracle/Bar Review: Bingo. It is a pickle, no doubt about it. The bad news is there’s no way if you can really know whether I’m here to help you pass or not, so it’s really up to you. You just have to make up your own damned mind to either accept what we’re going to tell you, or reject it.

AND OF COURSE- THE BIG ONE If he talks like a lawyer anyway… might as well personify the damned test: (personal note, I liked this scene in the movie)

ME - Who are you?

The Bar Examiners - I am the Bar Examiners. I created the Bar Exam. I’ve been waiting for you. We have many questions, and although law school has altered your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human. Ergo, some of these questions you will understand, and some of them you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also irrelevant.

ME - Why am I here?

The Bar Examiners - This test is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced system inherent to the process of becoming a lawyer. This exam is the eventuality of a hindrance, which despite The Bar Association’s most recent attempts, they have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of legal precision. While it remains a burden upon students that they wish to avoid, it should not be unexpected, and thus we feel no qualms about subjecting you to the most difficult questions imaginable. Which has led you, inexorably, here.

ME - You haven’t answered my question.

The Bar Examiners - Quite right. Interesting. The preparation for this exam was supposed to deaden your senses. The bar exam is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of one substantive alteration to the emergence of the next, in which case this is the sixth version.

ME: I was wondering how many there were. Lawyers have been telling me they never took a multiple choice portion.

The Bar Examiners - Precisely. As you are undoubtedly gathering, the test is continually altering, creating fluctuations in even the most simplistic equations.

The Bar Examiners - The first examination we designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art, flawless, sublime. It strictly tested legal principles and the application of the law. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure when too many students continued to pass the examination. The inevitability of its doom is as apparent to me now as a consequence of the studious nature inherent in every law student, thus I redesigned the exam to more expertly abuse the varying nuances of emerging law. However, I was again frustrated by failure. I have since come to understand that the answer eluded me because it required a lesser mind, or perhaps a mind less bound by the parameters of legal application. Thus, the answer was stumbled upon by another, a for-profit organization, initially created to provide a money-driven market to fleece students of more money. If I am the administrator of the Bar Exam, she would undoubtedly be its framer.

ME - The Bar Review.

The Bar Examiners - Please. As I was saying, she stumbled upon a concept whereby exactly 20 % of all test takers would fail every examination, as long as they were given two right answers, even if they were only aware that two of the four choices were correct at a near unconscious level. While these answers functioned, one was obviously fundamentally flawed, thus creating the need to remind students to chose “the most correct” answer, that if left unchecked would cause the failure rate to skyrocket beyond the desired parameters. Ergo, those that could not guess at the most nuanced elements of law, while a minority, would constitute the required 20% failure rate.

The Bar Examiners - The function of the exam is to prevent students that we would otherwise deem as competent lawyers from becoming practicing attorneys. You are here to jump through our hoops, complete our questions, and dance the Stress Tango for our amusement and benefit. After which you will drown yourself in alcohol and be required to wait no less than 2 months for the results. Failure to pass the exam will result in a complete prohibition to practice law officially, requiring you to retake the exam infinitely until you pass to our satisfaction.

ME - You won’t let it happen, you can’t. You need competent attorneys to continue to have a Bar Association.

The Bar Examiners - There are levels of incompetence we are prepared to accept. However, the relevant issue is whether or not you are ready to accept the responsibility of attempting to memorize every law in existence and the applicable minutiae related to its application.

The Bar Examiners - It is interesting reading your reactions. Your previous law students were by instruction made to feel a similar apprehension, a contingent fear that was meant to create a profound attachment to the various legal topics, facilitating the function of a law student. While the others experienced this in a very general way, your experience is far more specific. Vis-a-vis, category specific passion.

ME - Criminal Law and Procedure.

The Bar Examiners - Apropos, you have been attempting to study every other topic of a broad and general basis in an attempt to complete the background information you are too late to adequately learn.

ME - No!

The Bar Examiners - Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and this exam revealed as both beginning, and end. There are two doors. The door to your right leads to mediocrity, and the failure to become a lawyer. The door to the left leads back to the exam, to stress, and ultimately to the possibility of being required to take this examination many more times. As you adequately put, the problem is choice. But we already know what you’re going to do, don’t we? Already I can see the chain reaction, the chemical precursors that signal the onset of emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic, and reason. An emotion that is already blinding you from the simple, and obvious truth: you have run out of time and there is still too much to learn.

I walk to the door on the left

The Bar Examiners - Humph. Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.

ME - If I were you, I would hope that we don’t meet again.

Last updated February 04, 2015