Sunday, January 17, 2016

AND THE KITTENS WERE GONE!

Don't worry, nothing actually happened to any kittens, that's just what my friends would say when I started telling a story and got off-topic and rambled for 45 minutes. It is basically the last line from a story which, if I'm being honest, was one of the LEAST ridiculously long tangents I've gone on while attempting to tell a story.

If you've ever attempted to have a conversation with me, you'll know that I lose my train of thought about 50 times during the course of any attempt at speaking and generally end up completely forgetting what I was initially talking about. I am in no way concise. When I write, however, I am quite concise. I get to the point and I'm done.

I have a confession to make. If you hadn't already figured it out from my complete radio silence following my countdown to the bar exam, I did not pass. However, I was in the majority, since only 46% of people taking the California bar this past July passed. I was actually so shocked that I didn't pass that I entered my registration number into the box FIVE TIMES to make sure I typed it correctly, and was then still somewhat convinced that there was a mistake. That's what I get for being too cocky - the "I've already passed two different bar exams on the first try, this one will be cake" attorney who was convinced that having practiced in real life would make my answers better.

Actually, that's what I get for being TOO CONCISE. Those were exactly the words my legal writing teacher (may she rot in hell) wrote on my first memo in law school. What, you're mad that I didn't REPEAT MYSELF UNNECESSARILY?  You're mad that I stayed on topic? You wanted me to explain things to you as detailed and dumbed down as one would to a six-year-old?

Apparently yes.

Let's put this in perspective. I received my answer packet from the bar showing what I wrote (with no notes, thanks for the help guys) and today I compared it to the "good" answer for the same question that they posted on the internet. I got each of the questions RIGHT, and came to the conclusions in the same way as the sample answer, but there was a marked difference:

My answer took up four pages. The sample answer took THIRTEEN PAGES.  I'm just going to let that sink in here for a second.

Basically, it was my answer with every single thing defined. While mine would say something to the effect of "the court correctly denied Bob's motion for summary judgment because blah blah blah," the sample answer was more like "Bob, who was born on a farm in 1914, lived a long, hard life picking weeds from his neighbor's yard...he had type A blood, an unnatural interest in the mating habits of pigs, and saw his first grey hair when he was 20 years old. When Bob filed the motion for summary judgment, he drove there in his 1994 Honda Accord that was purchased via quitclaim deed from his sister, Sue, who inherited it from her father through his holographic will that was also videotaped, notarized, and performed via interpretive dance The judge who denied Bob's motion had just filed for divorce from his wife and was in the 7392 day waiting period between filing and actual dissolution of the marriage, therefore his state of mind was relevant to the proceedings and should be taken into account when the case is brought up on appeal, as well as the fact that the judge's brother just found oil on the judge's property and should the judge or his brother have the rights to the oil if the land used to belong to Barbara Streisand but now the judge is renting it from Charlie Sheen and is violating his lease by having a dog?"

Whoa, hold up, I think I'm going to use that answer next time...