Post-Bar Chronicles Part I: 24 Hours Postbartum
[EDIT: By the time I am posting this it has been well over one week since I took the Bar. I’m a slow poster but I’m trying to get better]
As many of my readers probably know, I recently took the Florida Bar exam. I’ve had about a week to decompress, so I thought that now is a good time to provide an update about what true unemployment looks like.
After the exam was over I went back to my hotel room and stared into the abyss. No feelings of relief or solace. I made some brief phone calls (mom, Ryan), and eventually mustered the strength to get ready for the night. I had dinner with some of my peers at a restaurant called Predlina. We enjoyed sharing our experiences and did our best to put each other's nerves to rest.
The second my eyes opened the following morning, my first thought was I need to go home. I need to leave this city right now.
As I was throwing my belongings into my bags, I paused for a moment when I came to my notecards. Throughout studying for the bar I would make notecards (“flashcards”) of the rules we had to know for the exam. I stored my notecards in a long black box. It brought me so much joy to see the box grow fuller each week. It was like my tiny ecosystem that I would tend to every day. I didn’t care about the course completion percentage bar. All I cared about for those 10 weeks were my notecards. I was so proud of them. I had neat colorful labels for each subject and I purchased sharpies exclusively to use to create the notecards. Whenever I made a mistake, instead of crossing it out I would create a new card because the card deserved better.
At this point, the box of notecards weighed a few pounds. My original plan was to toss them after the exam since they were so heavy, and hopefully won’t be useful to me anymore. But as I sat there staring at my hard work, it made me sad thinking of leaving them behind. These notecards have been my life for the past 10 weeks, how could I leave them out to dry like this?
Ultimately, I made the difficult decision and threw the easily 1000+ notecards into the puny Hyatt Downtown Tampa waste bin. It didn’t feel good like most people would expect, but it was the right thing to do.
You have to grow up and move on. My bag was also a lot lighter which was nice.
The drive thereafter was the longest four hours of my life. I finally felt a sense of peace when I arrived at the Davie Boulevard exit.
That didn’t last long, because as I started to navigate the residential streets, I noticed a dreadful sound. When I hit my breaks it was like someone was putting metal in a meat grinder. An awful, terrible noise.
At that point though, I didn’t really care. All I cared about was being home. And I was. The breaks can wait another day.
[fast forward, I waited about a week to get them checked out, and the dealership said my car needed $7,000 in repairs. But my dad is going to pick it up from the dealership and he is going to fix it at home. I have a great dad!]
I squeaked and rumbled all the way home. I stopped at Temple Street Eatery on the way to get pho. I ate it on my balcony and spent the rest of the afternoon staring into the abyss.
We only covered about 24 hours of unemployed life, but I think this is a good stopping point for now.
