One Year Ago Today...

. . . I was in the middle of the bar examination, a three-day process on the last Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of July 2007.

For the first two days I got a ride with a classmate to the Valley Forge Convention Center, located in King of Prussia, where I sat for the Pennsylvania bar examination. Tuesday was essay day; Wednesday was the MBE -- the Multi-State Bar Examination -- a 200-question, multiple choice bonanza: 100 questions in 3 hours in the morning, then 100 questions in 3 hours in the afternoon.

I remember sitting there in this enormous convention hall, rows upon rows of desks (i.e., picnic tables) filled with fellow test-takers, thinking to myself that this was the real deal, the culmination of a summer of anticipation, and ultimately the final psychological obstacle, after 3 years of self-sacrifice and a great deal of unhappiness, that I would soon re-enter society and begin reestablishing some self-sufficiency and, concomitantly, some self-respect. I was worn-out and depressed at being dependent. Thus, the natural nervousness that I had sitting there for the bar exam was counterbalanced, and perhaps even outweighed, by a keen sense of completion.

"It's game-time, baby," I said to my friend Mike, while slapping his hand in greeting, that first morning right as I was walking into the Convention Center. And that's how it felt to me; it reminded me of the feelings that coursed through my body before my high school and college football games, the nervous excitement I had before club meetings and public speaking experiences in college: the common factor being that I was stepping up to the stage, confident in my ability to perform under pressure and under the spotlight, and get the win no matter what.

Wednesday night, after taking the MBE earlier that day, I packed my bookbag and went to 30th Street Station to catch an Amtrak train to Trenton. My dad picked me up and I spent the night with him, so I could leave first thing on Thursday morning to drop him off at the train station (to get to work) and I could continue driving on to Somerset, New Jersey, where I sat for the essay day of the New Jersey bar examination.

Thursday was a breeze, psychologically speaking: I knew that the PA bar was behind me and this was just gonna be icing on the cake. The ambivalent feelings of the first two days shifted weight by the time I arrived in Somerset, to the point that I felt bold and quite assured, thinking to myself that I had absolutely nothing to lose. The NJ bar was administered in a huge garage, what could've easily been an airplane hangar, it was so big and absent of any spirit or comfort. But it didn't faze me because I was already looking forward to drinking a few cold beers that evening with my dad, and the certainty of that made the day itself seem like only a formal requisite that merely had to be dealt with. Despite this, I remember pulling out of the parking lot in Somerset feeling like an emancipated man, as if I had graduated again for the second time in just two months. Man, what a feeling!

And so, being very aware of others who are taking bar exams this year, I'm reflective of where I was this time last year. I'm very thankful that I passed both the PA and NJ bar exams. I'm very relieved that I was able to push through all the frustrating, helpless, and depressed times over the course of 3 years and get to where I am today. That's not to say that I've reached my final destination, because the new journey is still just beginning. But law school and the bar exam was a chapter unto itself, one that I look back on with wistful self-pity, but in the sweetness of retrospect, with a sense of pride and accomplishment, all the more so for having endured so many psychological and mental challenges.