Ouch, hangovers (gag) hurt

Disclaimer: this post may be riddled with spelling, grammatical and other brain errors.  I don’t care.

I celebrated last night.  My husband and I started the evening in a very tame, sophisticated way, and ended it with threats about emergency room visits and memory loss.  Now I am trying to wake up completely and making every effort not to vomit, although that may help cure what ails me.  The details of last night are lost; only some will be patched together by other people’s accounts of the night.  All I know for sure is that I participated in a group binging that surpasses many college frat parties.

I would love to go into detail, but I can’t remember many.  The night ended when I ended up tangled on the floor with another new bar admittee.  Classy.  I don’t know how we fell, or what we were doing prior to the fall.  I do know that both of our husbands seemed very disapproving (naturally) and that my friend may or may not have been taken to the emergency room.  My head is hard; the floor’s got nothing on it.  So I just got taken home with tons of new mystery cuts and bruises for me to try and attribute to certain events.  Right now, I have no idea.  I’m just glad that all of us new attorneys didn’t get arrested.  I’m supposed to go pick up my daughters in 30 minutes, but I can’t see or form thoughts well.  I have a feeling my husband will not be sympathetic.  Still, it was totally worth it!

Update 10:26 p.m. — Though last night’s debauchery does not mark one of my finer moments, I am happy to report that everyone is okay, though one friend did end up in the ER until 5 a.m.  Unfortunately, we law students became seriously rusty drinkers, and our champagne celebration took us from happy to sloppy in a few short hours.  At this point, none of us is sure how the fall occurred, but my right knee is badly bruised and swollen, and my friend can describe her head the same way.  The doctor told her she had a concussion.

You’d think we were a bunch of lushes wildly partying at a rowdy bar, but that’s not so.  Instead, we were a group of girls with lower tolerances to alcohol than we thought and apparently very poor balance.  Why do barstools have to be so high?  Another factor we didn’t consider is the effect of age on your ability to bounce back the next day.  This is much harder now than it was in college!  And more embarrassing!  Happily we got it out of our systems, and feel no need to repeat that behavior.  We have scheduled our next get-together so we can gather in an adult manner without medical repercussions.  Or concussions.

Yes I passed! Yes I passed! Thank God Almighty, I actually passed!

I know the above title is ambiguous, so I will explain: I PASSED THE BAR EXAM!  I am in disbelief, checking the website over and over to be sure my name is actually there.  When my friend called me this morning as I was driving my daughters to school (breaking the previously agreed upon no-call-rule for today), I didn’t mean to even answer the phone.  I hit the wrong button as I picked it up and the call connected.  Not wanting to hang up on her, I put the phone to my ear.  The sound that came through was so loud I almost couldn’t understand it.  Then what she said registered.  We passed, we both passed!

I had to pull the car over.  I started shaking.  I explained that I didn’t doubt her, but I needed to see for myself.  So I hung up and silently thanked my husband for persuading me into buying a BlackBerry.  I entered the website and found my name, my heart beating wildly.  Joyful tears made the screen blurry as I squealed at the sight of “Admitted September 28, 2007.”  Now, a few hours later, I am still elated, yet in disbelief. 

My husband and I are currently scrambling to get a babysitter for tonight.  We made no plans prior to the results being released — no one I know did — because that just begs for results that are not in your favor.  I don’t usually consider myself superstitious, but I still didn’t want to take a chance and jinx it.  We plan to have a nice dinner and copious wine, then meet up with other newly-minted attorneys at the chosen place of revelry.  There will be a cab involved; I don’t want to take a chance on getting disbarred before I’m formally “barred.”  (I have to guess that someone who’s gone before has ended up facing a disciplinary board regarding antics following admittance notification, but I’m not following in those footsteps!)

The aforementioned BlackBerry may overload and burn up from the constant calls and e-mails.  People that I graduated with who also passed are all calling each other repeatedly with updated news or just to reinforce the happy fact.  This is such an awesome day.  It brings joy similar to what I felt when my children were born.  It’s not that I’m likening a professional licensing to the birth of my daughters in the respect that it even compares to their arrivals into this world, it’s just that what it lacks in the order of importance, it kind of makes up for in the fact that I’m not celebrating from a hospital bed with a need for painkillers.  Or, as Robert Frost so aptly put it, “Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.”

As I sit here and ride this euphoric feeling of gratefulness and relief, I cannot help but think of the one thing that detracts from this fulfillment: my friends who did not pass.  I haven’t spoken to two of them; one e-mailed his congratulations and broke my heart with his kindness despite his own sadness.  I cannot think of what to say or do in the wake of this.  I know that we all discussed how we didn’t want to talk to anyone should we fail, and I can more than respect that.  I had already prepared myself for the worst, and I know that I would not have wanted to talk to anyone who had received good news if I had not.  Still, I want to be a good friend, and that means determining when to call and what to say.  I hope that I figure out the best approach.

I have days’ worth of thanking family, friends and God ahead of me.  Oh, and I need to get a job now.  That might stave off the bill collectors.  To everyone out there who took the July 2007 bar exam — good job.  Pass or fail, the hardest part was just subjecting yourself to it and sticking with it.  If you have to take it again — good luck.  And congratulations, you are twice as strong for it.

Today’s the day

The anticipation is killing me.  I actually managed to sleep normally last night, though I didn’t go to bed until around midnight.  Of course, over the past several months, a normal night’s sleep involves at least five hours of slumber with three or fewer interruptions.  That’s been good enough lately.  Now as I sit at this computer that has become an appendage since MicroMash, my hands are shaky over the keyboard.  The thought of feeling utterly dejected in a few hours haunts me.  I know that psycho-gurus boast about the power of positive thinking, but it feels too risky to my psyche to let myself believe that I passed the bar exam.  If I don’t set my expectations that high, maybe I won’t be as crushed if I receive bad news.  It’s all I can do not to be positive that I failed.

Henry Ford once said, “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”  The most positive thought I can muster right now is that when I first contemplated taking the bar exam, and even while I was preparing for it, I thought I could.  Though my confidence level has faltered many times, I still know that, no matter the outcome today, I can pass the bar.  I’d rather have accomplished this on my first attempt for myriad reasons, but it will not be the end of the world if I retake the exam in February.  It will just be the world on hold.

If you’ll please bow your heads

And now we pray.  My husband suggested saying a prayer to St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.  Though I am a touch offended that my husband seems to concur that it is a lost cause already, I agree that a prayer might be in order.  I do pray regularly, but rarely for what I consider to be trivial or selfish matters.  I believe that God has His hands busy, what with overlooking how ever many billions of people populate the world today, and that it’s just not right to ask for intervention into something that falls short of monumental.  For instance, what if I were to pray for a winning lottery number and God answers my request in his benevolence, only to miss the pleas for food made by a starving child on the other side of the world?  Boy, would I be a selfish jerk.  So, I say prayers mostly of thanks, for my daughters and their good health, and keep my requests to those of importance (always to watch over my girls) and blessings for family and friends.  Recognizing that the bar results are fairly monumental, especially since I am jobless and deep in debt, I think I will give a shout out to St. Jude.  If he deems it a case worthy of God’s intervention, he can pass it on.

Say it with me now: 

“Most holy apostle, St. Jude Thaddeus, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the name of the traitor has caused you to be forgotten by many. But the Church honors and invokes you universally as the patron of hopeless cases, of things almost despaired of. Pray for me, I am so helpless and alone. Make use, I implore you, of that particular privilege given to you, to bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly – that I may receive a passing score on the July 2007 bar exam, and that I may praise God with you and all the saints forever. I promise, O blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor, to always honor you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you. Amen.”

And to all of you out there also waiting in this career equivalent of purgatory, bless you and good luck.
 

Nervous energy works in mysterious ways

This is a first.  I have now felt compelled to write three posts in one day.  This may not even be my last of the day.  It seems that all of this anxiety has me a little jacked up.  Still, I can’t seem to use this energy productively.  Instead of taking advantage of this windfall and say, cleaning the house, I am sitting here typing yet another blog post.  I have also been all over the Internet, as friends call or e-mail with rumors abound about early posting of the bar exam results.  (No creative web searching so far has turned up this secretive page.)

Now I’m off to pick up my girls from their schools.  My four-year-old has dance class in 45 minutes, and I have to find her shoes and tights.  I think I’ll grab another caffeinated beverage while I’m out.  Maybe another jolt will get me to mow the lawn.  I’ll probably need that “available only by prescription” medicine just to sleep tonight.  And possibly to help me back to sleep after the bar exam results are posted — I’d rather snooze through the initial shock and pain than field phone calls or e-mails from non-bar takers who don’t know better than to ask.