Bar? What Bar?

I promise I’m studying for the bar.  I’m about to kick it into high gear.  I’m solid on the “act like a lawyer” part – where they give you fake law, fake facts, and ask you to do lawyerly things with them – like write a brief or a motion.  I’ve done about four of these and each one comes fairly easily to me.  I’m also set with the multiple choice part – the MBE, which tests what I like to call the “Big Six.”  These are the topics that you learn 1L year, and which make up the building blocks of pretty  much all law: Contracts, Constitutional Law, Property, Criminal Law, Torts, and Evidence.  Because I took classes in these subjects, and then used them one way or another throughout law school, I’m pretty good on them in a multiple choice situation.  I also have to write essays on them, however, and I’m pretty much flunking my essays without fail.  I don’t really know how that’s possible – to get an A++ in multiple choice, and an F- in essay format – but I’m just skilled in that way.  In addition, I have to write essays on Wills, Trusts, Alabama Procedure and Remedies, Federal Procedure and Remedies, Corporations, Agency Law, Partnerships, Secured Transactions, Commercial Paper, and Family Law.  I am also routinely flunking all essays that I write on these topics, none of which I ever did in law school (except Federal Procedure), none of which come naturally to me.  So that’s not so great.

Ergo – two sections solid, two sections super-wobbly.  It helps me narrow my studying down, sort of.  What will also help is that though my husband is in Ireland at the moment on a research trip, my oldest child is at full day day-camp, and my younger child will be watched by others for the bulk of the week.

I’ve been thinking about a post about the Slaughter article, but am not permitting myself to write it til the bar is over.  Meantime, here’s a few more pix of the summer of awesome.

Lake

Our friends live on a lake in South Carolina, and we get to go to the lake often.  One evening we were invited out on their pontoon boat, which Jack declared was a fairy boat that would take us to pirate island.  Exhibit A of why having small children is cool – they add a tinge of magic to everything.

Shortly after this photo was taken, a sudden storm whipped itself up, complete with lightning and driving rain.  So motoring back across the open water in the lightning was not my favorite half hour, but we made it un-fried and survived to tell the tale.

We spent the Fourth swimming in the pool, and I took nary a single picture – but it was great fun.

Today Jack is at day camp.  I was surprisingly anxious about it – Do they know he can’t swim?  What if he gets stung by a bee? (He’s never been stung by a bee yet, but he could have an allergy and go into anaphylactic shock!  You never know!)  What if he gets lost in the woods?  What if he runs away from his teacher and tries to swim in the lake?  What if he chokes on his grapes?  It’s that running commentary, that anxiety that whomps you upside the head when the baby is born and never fully goes away.  I’m pretty good at smothering that horrid little voice, but occasionally it roars up at me again – like on the days when I drop my little four year old off in a group of other kids, most of them bigger, and then drive away and leave him in the hands of people whose very life’s happinesses and joys do not depend on his continued health and well-being.

So, to calm the Beast, I’m going to do some practice bar essays, and try to remind myself that the YMCA knows what its doing.  At least he had no trouble waving good-bye to me – my little trooper.  He just walked around showing everyone that his name is written inside his hat.  Love that kid.