I just survived a three-hour tour of constitutional law, which has to be one of the most boring subjects I have ever studied, other than possibly a college class I have chosen to forget.  It’s a necessary evil for the bar exam, but it makes one want to pull one’s hair out from the roots and run screaming through the neighborhood, claiming free speech all along the way.  I have survived, and I really feel like I qualify for one of those “I Survived” t-shirts that you see at the white-water rafting facilities in the upper northwestern U.S.

The professor was great.  He made it funny.  This was so much better than it was in law school, as we didn’t even learn about the 1st Amendment because we were actually told that there was another class that taught that so if we wanted to know about it, then we should take that class.  Huh?  33% of the con law questions on the bar exam are actually about the 1st Amendment.  Thankfully, this professor on bar review knew his stuff and knew how to get his point across both succinctly and clearly.  It was a joy, if one could ever see con law as a joy.

After three solid hours of fun, I am taking a break.  I am three days ahead in the lectures, mainly because I have found that the lectures tie me to my computer, wherever that may be, while some of the other activities tie me to a bit thick paperback book, about the size of Mount Rushmore on a hot day when the rocks have swollen twice their normal size.  At least Mount Rushmore and I can go sit anywhere, even hiding in the closet floor if I’m having a BEBM (bar exam breakdown moment).  The book makes a most-excellent headrest if I get tired in the closet, as well.  That’s a good thing.

I think some of the bar exam subjects will just dredge up old feelings from law school, like family law for instance, where I spent an entire semester sequestered in a room 1 – 2 hours a night twice a week with about 100 people who had (1) never been married, (2) never even dated seriously over about 2 weeks, and (3) most certainly had no children.  I loved listening to their soft-hearted voices cry out at the injustices that children face at the hands of an evil parent who did some horrid atrocity, like making them eat their Brussels sprouts or not allowing video games after 9pm.  At one point in the class, I was so fed up with the social-worker-goody-two-shoes attitudes that I actually asked one of the flock if they even had kids, had ever babysat kids, or even knew what a child was.  When she said she had no kids and she wasn’t married, I told her that she needed to come back and talk about the subject she was espousing such great knowledge in after she did, as she frankly had no idea what the hell she was talking about. 

That’s the best thing about law school.  You get to openly express your opinions, within reason of course.

She did shut up and gave me hateful looks the rest of the semester, as the other “evil” parents and I (all three of us in the room) told such awful stories as actually telling a child to eat his dinner because we were not cooking anything else or telling a teenager to be home before 10pm on a weekend night.  Awful atrocities I know, but the whole class was focused simply on the “best interest of the child”.  Sometimes the child’s best interest is eating her Brussels sprouts, learning how to be respectful of food on the table and showing up on time for curfew.  Apparently Ms. Social-Worker-Goody-Two-Shoes was either the absolute perfect child who never did anything wrong, or she was born of perfect parents who never, even one time, made her do something she didn’t want to do, like eating her vegetables.

So, more fun in the bar exam handbook awaits.  Thankfully, or perhaps not, Family Law is one of the last subjects.  More thankfully, it only encompasses one day.  Maybe I’ll just go on ahead and get that puppy done so that I won’t be really mad during the bar exam!