DHARMA - The Bar Exam

So I went to visit a friend from law school who recently returned to Chicago. She lost her job in the way many have, because of poor revenue not poor performance. Thankfully, she is blessed with a plethora of talents and compassion - so she toyed around with the idea of teaching for a while. Eventually, she settled on a more concrete and seasonally appropriate task: taking the Illinois State Bar Exam.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Illinois Bar Exam, it is a two-day exam designed to test your knowledge of "the law" and if you score high enough, you are admitted to the Illinois State Bar and allowed to practice as an attorney within the state of Illinois. I imagine the Bar exam to be similar to the hazing rituals that serious fraternities inflict upon new recruits: It's painful, but at the end you can high-five each other and get so drunk that you forget most of the terror and humiliation of the experience.

While studying for the bar takes approximately 7 weeks, it starts out in the way studying usually does. You listen to a 2-3 hour lecture, you take some notes, maybe you review those notes. You go have lunch with your friends, update your facebook status and watch an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer before doing the assignment for the next day.

However, there is a turning point that happens, usually around week 5. You begin this week as you begin any other week: listening to lectures, reviewing notes, doing an assignment. But then, all of a sudden, the classes end and the powers that be tell you that you have all the information you need, now you just need to memorize it. From that moment on, what motivates you to study is Fear. And what a great motivator it is. Studying begins early in the morning and lasts until the evening. Then you trudge home, quietly mumbling tenants of law to yourself on the L, go to sleep and do it again for the next 2 weeks.

This is the moment in a movie when the clever protagonist quietly sneaks away from the crazy person. Anyone you know who is taking the bar - make a note in your calendar around the second week of February that says "Get out now" or "Bat shit crazy" to remind yourself to stay away from that person.

My friend began studying for the Bar exam yesterday. I sat with her for moral support (read: to distract her with youtube videos) and to spend some time together the way we used to in law school. We chatted about what we remembered from torts. Short conversation. We talked about life, love, goals, new years resolutions, changes we've made since graduating law school. It was a rejuvenating experience to see her and be able to talk face to face. But quietly, while we talked about other things, I wrote in my calendar on February 12th, "Run."