Last Post Before the Bar Exam

The next time you hear from me, the bar exam will be over and I will have relocated to my couch for some quality time with Netflix, vodka, and my fur baby. Still pants-less.

Ostensibly, I can get back to “real life.” Whatever that means because suffering the bar exam seems pretty damn real to me. I have some ambitious plans for #postbarexamlife, but realistically I know I’ll probably be a zombie for weeks. When I re-emerge from brain hibernation, I look forward to a few things…

1. Putting a dent in this massive stack of books I picked up at ALA Midwinter, not to mention my already overloaded On-Deck reading list & my 2016 TBR list that was supposed to stay at twenty-four books.

2. Coming home from work, walking my dog, taking off my pants, and calling it a day. Instead of dashing home, walking my dog, stuffing my face with Ramen, and booking it to the library to get only 3 hours of studying every night.

3. Day drinking on Federal holidays instead of sitting in the library.

4. Dedicating the time I spent in transit to flashcards back to podcasts and job searching for permanent, full time law work.

5. Not constantly having to stuff my face because my body needs an excess amount of fuel to run like the machine it has been for these many weeks.

6. The nag, nag, nagging feeling that I shouldn’t be doing anything else (no eating, no sleeping, no fun, no changes, no people, etc.) but studying going away.

7. American Horror Story Hotel, The Blacklist, Criminal Minds, Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, Elementary, The Good Wife, Gotham, The Lizzie Borden Chronicles, Once Upon a Time, Ripper Street, Sleepy Hollow; and practically every film released since October 2015.

8. Tackling my 2016 goal to declutter and simplify my apartment.

9. No longer carrying around the heavy load that is bar prep books. I need the longest and deepest of the deep tissue massages between my shoulder blades.

10. That I passed and I won’t be doing this again in July.

~NV~

 

The Bar Exam + The Holidays = A Bad Mix

Something happens to my life around December 23nd where I have no control until about January 2nd. None. Zilch. To keep myself from utter insanity, I accept this as set-in-stone fact in order to curb my natural fight against a lack of control. True to form, this year I had 20 hours of bar exam work to get done by my next tutoring session today, December 29th. Guess how much I did…No, my essay book did not come to the Grand Canyon. Well, it did, but it remained in my suitcase with my clothes unsuitable for Flagstaff, AZ in winter. And my MBE books were waiting for me on my coffee table as a not-so-amicable reminder.  I did go over some outlines…on December 28th…

I have just retuned home from a 1am cross-country red eye flight, and have to ask myself, “Self, do I now attempt to fit 20 hours of bar exam homework into 10 hours on no sleep or say ‘fuck it’, take a nap, do what I can in five hours and beg myself for forgiveness?”

8 weeks…

 

 

~NV~

Book Review: Half Bad by Sally Green

See original review here. 

I said ‘yes’ to Half Bad for three reasons: (1) English setting, (2) male main character, and (3) witches. Naturally, I was pretty happy to be offered the ARC to review.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed by the English setting. In fact, I was surprised to find out author Sally Green is British because the text reads more like an American writing about an English location. At times Nathan deals with people of other cultures and the language differences are mentioned, but otherwise they might as well be average American characters. When I read a book with an international setting, I expect the depiction of that setting in the plot, shown in the dialogue and not just told that aspect exists. The text should bleed with the nuances of that culture.

Although things about Nathan seem inexplicable, like his serious ass-kicking abilities, he’s likeable, and you want to root for him. Basically, he’s a kid stuck in a screwed up position by no fault of his own, trying to stay alive based on the tidbits of information he’s been able to glean over time. Life couldn’t even see fit to give him sour lemons. He’s constantly being kicked when he’s down, sometimes literally, and he keeps fighting. This is a boy with the courage of his convictions, very refreshing with all the wishy-washy characters in literature today doing flip-flops over themselves.

As for the witches, I’m looking forward to future books so we can see what Nathan is capable of, and as he interacts with the other witches, what they are capable of. From my perspective, most of the witches have tame powers, such as potion making. I’m willing to bet the author has some cool magic up her sleeve, if Marcus is any indication.

Before I go, I want to address the praise given to Half Bad by Kris Vreeland of Once Upon a Time Bookstore, Pasadena, CA. Specifically, my eyes honed in on “allegory of racism” in the comment. I’d say that’s an elaborate stretch. The colors black and white are commonly used as symbols for opposites or good vs. bad, but that doesn’t automatically classify a book as a racial allegory, or racial at all, in my opinion. An allegory is an extended metaphor where one thing stands for something else. The conflict in Half Bad is too benign and the use of “black and white” to symbolize race is too simple for such a complex matter. If I had never read the other reviews, I would say Half Bad is an encouraging story about taking control of your life in spite of elements completely outside of your control, and a lesson in self-trust.

The true test, in this instance, is whether or not I would read the sequel, and I will.

 

Boredom Leads to Books

I was looking for a challenge to attempt to commit to because, frankly, I’m bored. So I’m now doing three book challenges. Admittedly, I was only willing to go so far out of my comfort zone and extreme chess was next on the list.

Book Challenge One: Goodreads 2014 Reading Challenge is an annual challenge that I’ve been doing for the last 3 years. Last year I started with a challenge of 30 books and ended up increasing it to 40 because I surpassed my goal a little more than halfway through the year, ending 2013 having read 45 books. This year I challenged myself to 50, but I’m doubting I will make it with the bar exam smack in the middle of the summer and all that entails. In addition, I won’t be jetting off to a country where I can’t drive and have time to read books upon books upon books on public transportation. Unless I can pull off my diabolical post-bar exam plans. This challenge encompasses any book I read and Goodreads keeps track of it for me.

Book Challenge Two: The Book Vixen Read Your Freebies 2014 Reading Challenge is exactly how it reads – a challenge to read the free books I have acquired. It’s a third generation challenge, passed down from blogger to blogger. The gist is to read at least 12 legally obtained, non-ARC, free books, in any format. I’ve found that a lot of books are free for a reason, and you get what you pay for (or don’t in this case). I won’t be surprised if I do a lot of flouncing, but it will force me to read the free books I get instead of just collecting them. I have 104 options to choose from right now, mostly in my Kindle app. I’ll be utilizing the random number app to help me choose which ones to read.

Book Challenge Three: Fic Fare 2014 “Real” Book Challenge. Fic Fare is a book blog run by some people I kind of know from a different era in my life, but we’re still in touch and I like their book rec’ing skills. I’m aiming for 11-20 books that would land me in the “Real Book Enthusiast” category. I’ve already gone ahead and picked the first 11, which is the minimum I can read to reach my goal. I figure this leaves room to fill in anything that tickles my fancy that is not already on my list, as well as allowing for eBooks and freebies I want to read as I work toward the 50 total books. Seven of the eleven are recently unpacked books that I never got around to reading before they got shoved into storage for nearly 3 years.

1. What Alice Knew by Pauala Maranz Cohen
2. French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guilliano
3. Chocolat by Joanne Harris
4. The Girl With No Shadow (Chocolat sequel) by Joanne Harris
5. Pantomime by Laura Lam
6. Kill Your Friends by John Niven
7. Sudden Pleasures by Betrice Small
8. Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner
9. Goodnight Tweetheart by Teresa Medeiros
10. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
11. The Girl with the Iron Touch by Kady Cross

This challenge has some other components, like a blog post introducing the challenge and a monthly round up (I guess this can count), plus a prize at the end. I should probably read those details as well, but I’ll get to that. The official end to sign up is Dec 1, 2014.

Wish me luck.

Exam Time Has Begun. My Five Sanity Tips.

1. Pick a TV show that has premiered at any point from the year you started to apply to law school through the current place in your law school career and use it as a cushion between studying. Watch it for an hour before you go to bed, watch it during lunch; pick a subject, study four hours, break and watch your show for two, then go back to studying. Whatever method you choose, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re taking a break and that when you graduate it will feel less like crawling out of that crawlspace they found Sadam Hussein in.

2. If there is something you normally do during the school year that is not related to school, don’t stop now. Example: if you’re a three times a week gym person, don’t stop now. Going to the gym is just as integral to your lifestyle as passing your exams; and not because it’s healthy for you, but because you’re already in the habit. The same thing goes for the Monday Night Football game at the bar with your besties or regular Thursday night trivia get together with your bros. Why? For one thing, you don’t even have class now so the extra free time should mean you don’t have to cut things out of your life that give you balance. Second, anyone will tell you that going cold turkey makes people crabby and miserable and crabby and miserable people don’t do well on exams.

3. This can apply to anyone, but I highly recommend it to those going through their first round of law school exams – practice exams. Not because they help you with the material, although that is a bonus, but because you’re going to need to know your own ability to sit through the grueling business that are law school exams. Remember when you took the LSAT and how sitting in that room for so long made you start to develop cabin fever? There are no do-overs in law school, so sitting down a couple of times before an exam and practicing the art of sitting still and focusing for three hours will be a benefit.

4. Now is really not the time to start a study group, if you haven’t been using them already; and do your own outlines. Law school is not a collaborative effort. When you practice, the other lawyers cannot shoulder your work for you so you might as well start doing your own work now. If you get stuck on something, by all means seek someone out you trust to fill in the blanks. And comparing notes and methods is not a bad thing, but you take the exam by yourself and you need to be able to rely on your own brain for the answers.

5. Scheduling helps. This may be a personal preference, but I find it useful to have something to fall back on to keep me on track (mainly because I lack impulse control and will veer off path easily). It’s a little different this semester because I have 1 in-class exam, 1 take home exam, and 2 papers, as opposed to the 4-5 in-class exams of semesters past. Example: where I may have had a four hour block of time reserved for Civ Pro, this semester  I have three hours devoted to topic specific research for a paper and another hour set aside to outline. It will work differently for everyone, but it’s helpful when I’m hungry or want to Facebook and I know I can look at my schedule and see when I am having lunch or a coffee break or it’s time to do nothing but be lazy and watch my cushion TV show. BONUS: Writing it out in fun colors makes me want to look at it.

Happy Studying and Good Luck!

Mint Candy Apple

If you ignore my shaggy cuticles and jagged edging, I think the colors go quite well. The color is “Mint Candy Apple” by Essie.

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Due Process Issue I, Volume II

Check out page 5…

Books I Will Try to Read in the Next…9 days

This is Part II of the “Books I Will Try to Read…” series of posts – even though I never intended for it to become a series.

In Post One, I listed the four books I was going to try and read before I go back to school. When I  made that list, however, I neglected the fact that I was halfway through one, three-quarters through another, and had already began a third.

keep up with me on Goodreads

So since I finished Changeless and Insurgent, I have started on I, Lucifer (previously mentioned in Post One). I still haven’t got back into Duma Key by Stephen King. I like the plot, but he just takes so.damn.long to set a scene. I think I’ll pick this back up the next time I am on a train or plane for a few hours, then I might just plow to the end.

I’m about halfway through I, Lucifer and I think I’ll start on Goodnight Tweetheart. Originally I had planned to read Alice I Have Been (also mentioned in Post One) next, but I can’t seem to find my book. Yes, the actual book and not the eBook.

On that topic, I am an equal opportunity reader. The only difference now would likely be that for every hard copy book I buy, I probably buy two eBooks. This is mostly due to convenience and that they take up less space overall.

Sushi!?

I don’t even really like it. I only eat the cooked stuff like shrimp tempura roll. But it was a friend’s birthday on Thursday and she wanted to go to this all you can eat sushi place in Brighton, so I dove in and gave some new stuff a try. Of course, I also ate my weight in spring rolls.

The Black Keys

I adore The Black Keys. They have the perfect combo of rock and blues. I got to see them this week, for the third time, with a good friend, her HHP and a friend of hers. Everyone was a little under the weather, but I think that everyone had a good time overall. I was just kind of out of it all together and I forgot to take pics.

Having seen them three times, I can say two things: 1) you can totally tell real The Black Keys fans from the newbie bandwagoners; 2) Seeing them at the Garden kind of lessened the fun.

Besides the church clapper to our right, we had poor attempts at Glamazons behind us and a pair of people full on making out like they needed it to live. All of these people, and more, would do that annoying screech/cat call/fist pump/clap/ugly smile thing when their song would come on. Mind you, for most of these people, their song was one of the three songs by The Black Keys that pretty much everyone knows: the two off El Camino on the radio now and the one from the car commercial. Only real fans got hyped over every other song they played. Like…Same Old Thing, which is my TBK FAAAAVOOORITE!

And I miss the intimate feel of smaller venues. Rock concerts don’t do all that pizazz with pyrotechnics and a million jumbo-trons so all the fans can see very minute of the show. It’s usually more about the music and feeling it full on, which is hard to do in an arena; even one as small as The Garden.

All that aside, they sounded sooo good. So good. They’ve become more popular, but they haven’t lost that enigmatic edge they have. Their sound is still strong and hard, perfect.

I did take this little video. You can check it out for a sample.

Oh, and I betroth my panties to Patrick – The Black Keys drummer.