(no subject)

[vicarz]

Let me tell you about my day.

Has anyone else noticed that old punk is the new preppie? Kid you not - the preppie kids have just discovered CUT-OFF CAMMO SHORTS!!! Oh, and they have faux-hawks! When they move from flip-flops to j-crew AA GAP Faux-Marten boots the look will be complete! What do freaks and geeks have to do to stick out then, go all mod and wear shirts and ties? Will wall-mart stock tailored wool suits while torn-t's go for hundreds of dollars in the stores of g'town?

I took another full-length fake bar - this time from the makes of Kaplan. I'm actually impressed with their exam this time around. My usual criticism of Kaplan stuff is it is more cheerleader than substance, trying to raise your confidence. This time around, they tell you up front you're going to do horrible on their exam. It's full length, 200 questions in 6 hours, just like the MBE - but they only give you razor-fine distinctions and hard questions. I found it very difficult to keep on schedule and had to rush just to finish 10 minutes early in the AM section, and I barely finished on time in the PM section (granted I was getting fatigued, having difficulty focusing and not daydreaming). I wanted to score myself there in the lobby, secretly hoping I had somehow beat the odds, beat the shit out of the test, and wouldn't have a logical reason to return tues-wed (other than to watch the monkey dance since I paid my nickel...dance monkey, dance!).

Race thing - I was in the metro trying to figure out which way to go to get to the class at Georgetown Law (which I only just realized it not in Georgetown with the main campus) when a black dude came up to me and told me which way to go. He and the girl he was with recognized me from the barbri course and saved me. I talked with them a little on the way up. They seemed to now where they were going, and I asked if they went to G'town Law, and they both said yes. I was surprised. See, most black lawyers in DC I have met attended Howard University. For those of you not familiar, HU is a predominately black law school in the District. The thing was, I guessed, based on my experience, that these two black recent law graduates were actually from Howard, but I didn't want to seem like a judgmental asshole so I pretended I thought they were from Georgetown. I kinda told a white-lie (pun intended). So I'm not sure if that makes me a jerk or not...lying to be polite, thinking black lawyers in DC were more likely to be from the black law school in DC...or worrying about it at all. Makes me wish I was a phobic xtian racist white guy so I could just shoot first and think never, without all this wishy-washy worrying about if I'm right or wrong all the time. "Was that racist of me? Did it sound racist? Does it sound racist that I 'm worrying about it right now? Oh my god, what if I'm harboring racial attitudes and I don't even know it aigh!"

Ignorant. While there, I briefly saw a girl I know from school - cute, middle eastern (never could remember if she was from Iraq or Iran, and was always scared to ask for fear of sounding ignorant). She always looked kinda mad, and often when I think someone is cute I tend to ignore them because I don't want to be caught staring, or shot down preemptively. I had tried talking to her a bit here and there, and was sure she gave me the brush off so I stopped trying. We exchanged waves in the beginning of the exam. Saw her again at lunch, spoke briefly, then I got my food and found a table by myself. I was surprised when she came up and told me "My friend and I are over there (point) if you want to join us." Neat! So I had company for lunch, though I had to um...monitor myself since I was excited on caffeine and from the exam (I tend to talk loudfasthard and monopolize conversations if I don't actively keep myself from doing so), and keep quiet about my high scores on the other exam. I don't want to seem like I'm bragging, alienate my friends, or make anyone feel bad about their score so I just downplay what I've done. Her friend stared at me smiling a LOT during lunch...I'd be wondering what was up with that if she hadn't talked about her military husband. Made me feel cute though. Sad that I still have to actively make sure I'm not being weird to hold a "normal" conversation.

I forced myself to hit the gym on the way home to make up for those leg exercises I forgot to do Sunday. Then I forced myself to shower and go through the mail...making me wait before scoring the stupid thing. Oh, did I mention that the Georgetown Law School was an absolute dump? Very not-impressive, even less impressive than GWU. So far, GMU was actually the best facility of them all - I'm shocked.

Oh, the score. To me that's the exciting part, to you...not many read this far even skimming. Please understand that my life is just this fucking desk, day-in, day-out, with nothing but these stupid law drills all day every day - not even much tv going on. So these events, and non-law-test thought processes are fucking fascinating to me. Anyway, I just scored the exam and did craptacular by my view. I only got 111/200, however, they state the average score is 95 on this hard version of the test. Per their calculation, this puts me near the bottom of the 75-90th percentile, and they say the average score on the exam is about 36 points higher - giving me a 147 by their guess. It's actually a slightly lower score than my ranked 90th percentile or higher on the barbri exam - but I front-loaded my studies while a lot of others hadn't really studied much at all. So rather than getting dumber, I think I've neared a ceiling and the class is catching up with me. So on a % basis, scaled score, I didn't bomb...but I didn't do so well that I should skip out on the next two days of classes either. Ok, so it wasn't actually craptacular...but I'm always hoping that I've done better than I felt. Never did...it's like checking my lottery #s, stupid, but I hope anyway, and the results are always the same.

Comments

[ex-dasboot.livejournal.com]

You should see Rugby's in Georgetown. It consists of rugby polos with ripped up skull patches, which is pretty much what every punk I knew stuck in catholic school did, only they didn't pay Ralph Lauren $120 to do it for them.

And the guys that work there naturally stand around tossing a rugby ball back and forth, like it was an Abercrombie in Sydney or something.

And I've totally been rocking the GQ preppy goth look for years.

[anarcha.livejournal.com]

In my diversity sensitivity training a couple years back (my whole firm did it), they specifically made the point that assuming a black attorney went to Howard was offensive.

My view has always been that making any assumption about one's personality, background, etc, based on appearance/race/etc is wrong. On the other hand, it's very hard to avoid doing it sometimes - certain things are just subconciously programmed by our culture. For that reason, I think it's highly praise-worthy when someone recognizes it in themselves, and acts to stop it.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

I think it's also silly not to make any assumptions. Guy with gun in the dark is likely to rob you, even if he might not. Lady in dress on a busy street is not about to hit you. Person with cross probably xtian of some sort, star of david probably jewish of some sort. When we try to lose all assumptions we are silly.

We all just try to find out where the balance is between being a fool and being an asshole?

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

This is pretty funny.

The Bar Exam: If At First You Don't Succeed... Try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, and try again. (http://www.abovethelaw.com/2007/07/the_bar_exam_if_at_first_you_d_1.php)

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Yeah she is pretty spooky. Lots of "facts" in that article don't add up...she's quite insane, but it shows, if you'll pardon the pun, "how low the bar actually is."

[hobbitkicker.livejournal.com]

I blame hollywood for the appropriation of the old punk look. You have David Beckham and Sascha Cohen (Borat) wearing the T-shirt and cut camo pants around and soon enough all the guys are doing it...because celebrities wear it and celebrities have money then preppies should wear it too...because they have money too and they love homogeny (whew...could I be any more jaded from living in NoVA?). At least they still wear the flip flops so we can hear them coming.