Finally!!!

Art Monk has finally made the Pro Football Hall of Fame! After 7 failed attempts, one of the most humble, yet still amazingly talented, figures in the history of the sport has reached its halls of greatness.

I'm not going to say much more, just that I'm really happy. For my argument, this year, as to why Monk belonged in the Hall of Fame, visit the sports blog site PHSports.

Congrats, Art. :-)

Substance Over Emotion

To those who know me, it's no secret that I love politics and I love to analyze government. Time and time again I've said that if it weren't for my religious convictions, I'd be an elected official. Sure, you might label it as just being talk, but trust me, I've thought it through. In fact, in my years of service in the Student Senate of George Mason University, and my years in the Student Bar Association at the American University Washington College of Law, I treated those positions as I would any elected position within a "real" government.


To me, true elected officials must see themselves as public servants. They must recognize that the job they were elected to requires them to put aside partisan games and their own future aspirations and to, rather, focus all of their efforts onto that which will serve those who gave them their jobs. Furthermore, when they seek those jobs, these public servants must be upfront with the voters about what they will bring to the table if hired/elected.

And that brings me to this current presidential election in the United States of America. Note that I didn't capitalize "presidential election." First and foremost, none of the candidates have done anything to merit capitalization. Secondly, the presidential election is just another job application process ... except this one has a few hundred million evaluators. So, until I start capitalizing "job application" I ain't gonna capitalize "presidential election." Just my 2 pennies.

Okay, back to topic. This is the first time in a long while that both parties have highly contested primaries, and it makes for great excitement. It's also very interesting for me to look at the battles between the top two candidates on each side. In the republican race, it's very much a war between issues. One candidate is banking on the economy while another is banking on national security. In the meanwhile, each is trying to establish himself as competent with regard to the other's top issue. When they stop the mudslinging, the elephant boys have a decent debate going on, and I'm very curious which "issue" will win out this year. Although, my personal opinion has the better candidate backing the secondary issue...we'll see how that works.

In the much-hyped democratic nominating process, the stage has shifted quite a bit over just a couple of months. But anyone that didn't see this coming also probably didn't expect the dot.com bubble to burst. On the democratic side, issues aren't garnering the spotlight, as the top two candidates seemingly have similar stances, though one has given more insight into policies and ideas than the other. Rather, the vote is coming down to substance versus emotion. One candidate has an amazing voice which is used to rally supporters and wanna-be believers. The other candidate has put forth comprehensive plans on what can and should be done. In my experience, emotion without substance is all hype and substance without emotion is boring but effective. Here's to hoping that Americans focus on the substance in order to obtain the hope they so desperately seek.

I love politics :-)

Touchdown!!!

So, it's been a while. But once you read my story, you'll agree that it was well worth it. But first things first...

To catch some of you up with my life: I did not pass the Virginia Bar Exam on the first go around, so I get the joy of taking it once more. This time I'll be taking it at the end of February 2008 in Norfolk, Virginia. I have, however, started a temporary job which should last another 2-4 weeks. It's with a firm in downtown D.C., and it's just a contract attorney position for which I'm doing document review (translation: I read hundreds of pages of documents a day and decide if our client has to turn them over to the other side or not. translation #2: boring as H-E-double hockey stick).

But that's enough "catching up." Now on to the entire reason I'm back at the blogging.

This job I've started is very tiring, particularly on my eyes. Further, it requires such concentration that when I get up from my desk my brain instantaneously turns into mush. I get that whole "glazed-over" look and, while I'm able to accomplish basic tasks, I don't really realize what I'm doing.

Today, around 11:00 AM, my 2 cups of coffee and 2 bottled waters had caught up with my bladder, thus necessitating a trip to the men's room. I entered, and noticed there was an individual seated in one of toilet stalls. Not really much of a shocker when you consider it's a bathroom. Anyway, I couldn't see anything but his shoes, and it didn't really matter. I finished my task and washed my hands (I've got the hygiene thing down pat). As I stood, drying my hands with paper towels, the guy in the can let a massive rip. I'm talking an explosion like one you'd expect from an elephant. This was definitely one that I would've bragged about for a week or so.

Regardless, back to the story. I was brain dead at that moment...didn't really have consciousness about where I was. So, the guy rips one loudly ... and what did I do? You'll never guess it. I raised my hands slightly and proclaimed, in a moderately loud voice, "Touchdown!"

Yes ... that's right. A guy farted and I said "Touchdown!" I instantly snapped back to reality, and bolted out of the bathroom. The next 10 minutes were spent trying to conceal my laughter as coughs. I know there's no way the guy knows it was me...he was seated, plus the only people I know thus far were still sitting near my desk.

In anycase, I'm proposing a new "man law." Anytime somebody rips a solid, healthy fart in your presence, you are required to raise both arms above your head and exclaim: "Touchdown!"

Thomas Friedman

With the lagging job search that has become my life ever since I took the bar exam, I never expected that the "story" of my first post-bar interview wouldn't be my "story of the day." But, due to a couple of factors, that first job interview is a distant second.

First off, it was only an interview with a staffing service who will try to find me temporary work as a contract attorney. Since this very rarely leads to a permanent position I am not horribly excited, but it will help pay the bills so I'll take what I can get for now.

Secondly, during my walk back to the subway station after the interview (which went well for those inquiring minds out there) I had my umbrella open due to the constant drizzle. From a distance, however, I saw a man in a beige/cream colored suit who seemed to be struggling with a box and who also was seemingly struggling to find a location. I had decided to offer to help him, either with the box, by lending my umbrella, or through pointing him in the right direction.

Now about 3 feet from him, I got a clear view of his face:

That's right, he looked exactly like Thomas L. Friedman, the amazing columnist for The New York Times. Naturally, I froze for a second to allow my brain to digest this information. (For those who do not know, Thomas Friedman is my favorite writer, and during the time I lived in Israel I would share his articles with some friends and we would have great discussions. I wouldn't quite call him a "hero" of mine, but he's somebody with whom I'd love to have conversations.)

Anyway, I did approach him and opened my mouth and said "Excuse me, sir. Did you need a hand with either your box, some directions, or the rain?" Unfortunately, my voice cracked. Yes, here I was, dressed professionally, clean shaven, ready to interact with this awesome columnist, and my voice cracked like that of a 13 year old boy. Awesome.

He ended up declining my offer for assistance and thanked me. But before I departed the scene, I opened my mouth once more, praying my voice wouldn't crack again (it didn't), "No problem, sir. And, sir, just so this doesn't eat at me the rest of the day, you are Thomas Friedman, correct?" He smiled and nodded and I walked away.

Yes, a pretty insignificant occurrence, but still my "story of the day."

DONE |

Thank the Lord, the Bar Exam is DONE!!!!!!!!!!

Who knows whether I passed or not, all that matters is that I did all that I could, and I completed the darn thing. So I'm happy ... at least for now :-)

I'm a bit more exhausted than I was yesterday, but I'll try my best to recreate today's experience as well. Now, keep in mind, today was "Bar Exam 2: The Multistate" and like most sequels it's not as funny, as compelling, or just plain as good as the original. But, for you, my loyal blog readers (even though you don't exist), I will continue.


Sleep last night was limited as well, even though I was completely exhausted and tired. I didn't feel as though the exam was weighing me down mentally, but evidently it was. This time, I fell asleep prior to midnight, but awoke numerous times throughout the night/morning hours. Although this was really annoying and prevented any quality sleep, it also ended up being my savior.

Evidently, in my groggy state on Tuesday morning I inadvertently disabled my alarm rather than just shutting it off temporarily. In deliberating what time I should get up on Wednesday, I decided to stick with 6:05 am even though the arrival time would be 30 minutes later than Tuesday's (since Tuesday's test involved laptops and today's didn't). Fortunately, I have the habit of checking the time whenever I wake up in the middle of the night, so the last time I woke up I rolled over and saw that it was 6:27. The shock gave me the jolt I needed to jump up and call myself an idiot.

Now, yesterday saw a series of "good calls" and "mistakes" on my part. Obviously, the genius move of disabling my alarm goes under the mistake category. But, the decision to try and get up early to review notes gets praise as a good call. Because of that, even though I technically overslept, I still had plenty of time to eat breakfast, get ready, and even do about 15 practice problems.

The morning walk to the test was rainy, but I fortunately had my umbrella. Nonetheless, I gladly accepted a ride from 3 co-sufferers when they stopped about halfway to the destination (not that y'all will ever find this blog, but if you do, thanks!!). The morning session itself was fairly rough. While many of the questions were similar to sample questions provided by PMBR (a Bar prep class that focuses solely on the Multistate examination), there were also others that seemed as though they came from Mars. On at least a handful of the morning's 100 questions I went through all four answer choices and eliminated them all ... D'oh!!!

Lunch was a repeat of yesterday, but this time I decided to let my brain completely rest and didn't review. I'll chalk that up as a good call because I was much more awake and alert in the afternoon than I was during either today's morning session or yesterday's afternoon session.

When I returned in the afternoon, I was pleased to find that the questions seemed more manageable. There were, of course, a few bumps in the road. First, a girl who was seated at the table directly across from mine stood up and turned in her exam less than halfway through the allotted time! 100 questions in under 90 minutes?!?! For her sake, I hope she was a genius ... otherwise she might be back in February :-(

The other notable moment was that the chief proctor of the exam stood at the podium with 90 minutes to go and announced "30 minutes remain in the exam!" My heart fell out of my chest, down onto the floor, flopped outside into the pouring drizzle and died 10 times over. Until, of course, I looked at my watch and realized that the guy had "fudged the bucket and told me too many words to know." Everyone else must have had a similar reaction b/c about 800 angry future lawyers started grumbling and protesting until the guy admitted his mistake.

Anyhoo, I'm DONE and that's pretty much all I care about at this point. Of course, since most, if not all of my friends decided to skip town tonight (even in the rain and traffic). So I'm left alone here in my Roanoke hotel room until I get back to Northern Virginia and DC tomorrow morning/afternoon. Oh well, it'll just be like a night alone in my apartment.

Thanks again for all the support!

A Sum Walks Into a Bar...

(insert canned laughter)

Yeah, so rather than write up 50 e-mails, make 50 phone calls, or send out a generic mass-email to people who might be curious as to how day one of the exam went, I decided to post on the blog (Not that there are 50 interested people, I would just call/email 5 people 10 times each).

After attempting to go to bed at 10 pm last night, I tossed and turned for over two hours, even though I took two Tylenol PM tablets at 9:45 pm. The last time I checked the time, it was 12:09 am, so I fell asleep at some point after that. The next thing I knew, I was given a not-so-pleasant wake-up alarm from my cell phone at 6:05 am. Thus began day one of the Virginia Bar Exam.

I took my time while eating breakfast and reviewed some notes, then, while getting ready I realized mistake #1. I left my belt at home. Now, six months ago, this would not have been a problem since I was bursting at the seams due to my excessive weight. Unfortunately, at about 25-30 lbs lighter, the lack of a belt caused a problem, especially since I planned on walking to the testing site. In the end, I made do and no, my pants did not fall off at any point. But I'm glad y'all got a chuckle at picturing the sight.

The morning session consisted of 5 essay questions on various topics of the law. It wasn't too horrible, though there was one subsection of question two that I had NO CLUE about. I sat there, staring out into space, trying to recall every word in my notes and every word spoken by the lecturers during my course. Finally I decided that I wasn't going to remember, so I just moved on. Good call by me, especially given the 36 minutes per essay that we had (5 essays, 3 hours, do the math).

After an apple and a "refreshing" turkey and cheese sandwich prepared by me in my hotel room, I decided to review my notes on family law and wills and trusts since neither topic was tested in the morning session and both are regularly tested on the Virginia exam. This counted as good call #2 because both were indeed tested in the afternoon essays. Unfortunately, mistake #2 was spending too much time reviewing the family law and not enough time on wills. Consequently, my wills essay was not as strong as it could have been. But oh well.

The afternoon portion of today consisted of 4 essays and 20 short answer questions, meaning a mix of fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice. Unfortunately, the first essay question of the afternoon left me "mortified and stupefied" as well as "shocked and chagrined." I sat there and just stared at it, trying to recall anything on the topic. But, no matter how much pressure I put on my feeble brain, I couldn't conjure up any memories of that subject area. So what did I do? That's right ... I made up the law. I hammered out 5 paragraphs based on my random invention of Virginia law and just moved on.

Overall, the day was okay. The morning session was much stronger for me than the afternoon, but I think I did well. In any case, it's in the past. Now I'm just waiting for "Success China Buffet" to deliver my Moo Shu Chicken. Tomorrow is the Multistate Bar portion of the exam. It consists of 200 multiple choice questions (100 in the morning and 100 in the afternoon) covering six areas of law (Contracts, Criminal Law, Evidence, Constitutional Law, Torts and Property Law).

So far so good. 'Til next time ...

Bar Bound

In approximately 12 hours I will begin my journey to Roanoke, Virginia, the site of the July 2007 Virginia Bar Exam. Basically, it's a test of how much law I've learned in the past 2 months (and will forget about 4 days from now).

Many of the thousands of people taking a bar exam of some state in the USA over the next few days consider the bar to be the most important test of their lives. Fortunately, I'm not as short-sighted as that (at least I don't think I am). Don't get me wrong, the bar is quite important due to the fact that it dictates whether or not I'll be licensed to practice law in the commonwealth of Virginia. However, there are far more important things in life, and far more important tests that will drive me crazy.

Anyhoo, I'm not going to sit here and wax philosophical, partly because I'm so brain-dead after the past 2 months of excessive studying. Just wanted to chime in before the long drive. As always, best to all...