This is not my blog.

I had the MPRE this weekend ... as those of you who actually read my blog have no doubt noted with my endless barrage of questions. Fret not, I think that I'm finished with the questions for now and will be returning to normal blogging now.

I arrived at the University of Charleston, where I had taken the LSAT some 12 years earlier to get into law school in the first place, about 20 minutes early for my MPRE test. I parked my car and took a last look at the test manual to decide what I wanted to try to get away with taking into the test room. When I was a law student, all scared of rules and such, I would have been terrified at the list of 14+ "Test Center Regulations" in the guide. I say 14+ because there is another section that further enumerates 7 types of behavior that are "Prohibited at Test Centers". These rules say such things as: that you "must bring at least two No. 2 pencils or mechanical pencils"; "the only things you will be permitted to bring into the testing room are No.2 pencils ... for example, you may not take pens, highlights, backpacks, purses, briefcases, food or drink, beeping alarms, calculator watches, wristwatches with a picture-taking feature, pagers, cellular phones, books, notes, scratch paper, Palm Pilots or other hand-held computers ... etc."; and "You may not wear a hat, earplugs, or headphones." In addition the rules tell you the things that will get you ejected and how you must make sure not to take the test booklet with you ... lots of real helpful stuff. It also tells you to make sure you bring your admission ticket with a passport photo attached and another form of photo id in-case you wanted to trust someone else to take the exam for you.

These rules really made me smile in a way that I wouldn't have when I took the test 7 years ago. I seem to recall fretting over some of these things back then and making sure that I did everything just right. As I read these rules I wondered about my choice of ironic t-shirt that I had chosen to wear today and contemplated that I went to law school with some people who would be neurotic enough to get freaked out about wearing a shirt with numbers on it because someone might think that it gave them some sort of advantage. I smiled and wondered if my shirt would freak out some law student who was a little too keyed up. I grabbed my copy of The Onion and picked up an extra mechanical pencil (so that I'd have exactly two) and exited my car. Yes, my copy of The Onion was contraband ... and my only regret was that I didn't have the shirt that you can buy from The Onion that says "Fuck off ... I'm reading The Onion." So I got to my seat and had some time to read before we got started. I was really enjoying myself too. I was one of the older people in the room but there was at least one other guy there who was taking the exam a second time as I heard him loudly complaining about having had to take the exam again having taken it 15 years earlier. I remained silent while people watching out of the corners of my eyes. The law students looked really nervous. It occurred to me that my streak of being a rules-breaker must have come from seeing how nonchalant that the older students were in law school. These were people who had seen the real world and who realized that all of these freaking rules and dos and don'ts just don't really matter much in most cases. Most anybody can recognize that mischievous trait in me now but I don't think it was present when I first took this test.

Here is a picture of the shirt that I wore. It's a reference to one of my favorite tv shows. We got started at about 9:30 after having to go through all of the reading of instructions, filling out our information bubbles, yadda yadda yadda. I contemplated how good it felt to fill out the bubble for "member of state bar" when it asked my status ... where last time my choice was "second year law student." I didn't see an option of "just taking it for shits and giggles" even though I don't think you have to be a law student or lawyer to take the test. One test taker just made it to the exam. He ran to the door in a panic as we were filling out the pre-test info having had a hard time finding the test center. He was lucky they let him in to take the test. So I got into the exam and took my time. I don't fill out the bubbles on my scantron form as I go, rather I circle the answer in the test booklet and then fill out the bubbles at the end (making sure I leave plenty of time for that). For this test I started filling out the bubbles with about 15 minutes to go. Kay had joked with me to choose "C" when in doubt and I laughed that I would think that the Bar nazi's would find a way to correct for that but I chuckled when I noted that I had answered "C" 19 times on a 60 question test while transferring my answers. Lastly we had to fill out a 10 question survey, if time permitted, about the test center. One law student asked in a panic if he would be penalized if he didn't have time to do that as the proctor called that we had 5 minutes remaining and she said no. I contemplated not doing the questions at all but did them anyway. One of them asked how much time had been spent preparing for the exam and my answer was the highest at more than 30 hours which may have been more time than I needed but I also included my D.C. Seminar in that.

I made it out to my car after the test booklets were collected and saw what looked like a parking ticket on my car! I got a little closer and saw it was a bank deposit envelope that had something written on it. It said "Let's do lunch? Your girls ... K and K. Call us" How sweet! Kay and k-girl had found my car and left me a note. I called them up and we met for lunch at Chili's and I started my new resolution to get my butt back into shape by choosing something from the "guiltless grill". I've been making some promises to Inca Princess that I would get myself in gear and now I have to do something about that 40 pounds I've gained since being back here in WV. So while I know I'm a little behind in blogging you can expect to see the following topics show up later today: the Kenova Pumpkin House; going to a race with JDB ... and going for a few ride-alongs; band practice and the scary hard and fast song; and my plan to get myself back into shape. Keep your eyes peeled. I have to head off to Court now (I'm blogging this on Monday morning despite the publication date). Later!

Labels: law, stories