Bar Exams I'm Glad I Didn't Take

Despite the accompanying agony, I am glad to have taken two bar exams. It was a challenge, an opportunity to prove myself, a validation of my strength and fortitude--sort of like childbirth, only with longer gestation.

But there are a few I'm glad I missed out on. Like the February 2001 Washington Bar Exam, which I had applied for, but my application was delayed while the Board of Governors considered whether I was qualified to take it. That was the year of the 6.8 earthquake in the middle of the exam. And I understand the earthquake was even more exciting in Seattle than it was in Olympia, where I was trying to stay awake at my desk that day and needed a little excitement.

Then there's this year's California Bar Exam at Pasadena (where I took it back in 2000). Apparently the room where they laptop users were taking the test flooded Thursday morning, preventing them from starting the last essay session until 11:30 a.m.; this meant they had to cancel the afternoon performance test. What this will do to their scores no one knows yet. Poor souls. I had many scary hypotheticals as to what could happen to prevent the bar exam from going on, but somehow floods in Southern CA did not occur to me.

Aaaaarrrgggghhhh!

Finally we have the radio hooked up--finally I can listen to the 11 o'clock classic radio hour while doing my classic household tasks.

And today it's a two hour special. Why? BECAUSE IT'S FUNDRAISING WEEK, OF COURSE!!!!

I hate fundraising drives. I hate public radio. Yes, I'm an unrepentant freeloader. Get some commercials, people! At least they are occasionally witty and entertaining, not a half-hour guilt trip.

Shocking Error

Yesterday I went grocery shopping. When I was serving DOB his dinner he looked in horror at one of my purchases. "You brought Heinz ketchup?" he said, "Don't you know that's like giving a donation to John Kerry?"

Alas, I don't usually think about politics in the seasonings aisle. (Difficult though that is to believe.)

But this makes me ponder how unpleasant it must be to be a tycoon. It doesn't matter what one's name was before, or how intrinsically dignified it is, ever afterwards it is associated with ketchup or tires or chocolate bars or whatever it was you got filthy rich selling. Of course, if one's name was something like "Burpee" in the first place, one might as well get rich selling cucumber seeds as not.

Speaking of people who have a lot of kids (but not too many), congratulations are in order to our good friends the Hastings, who welcomed home their ninth this week. And the older children cleaned the house and prepared a festive dinner of (since it was a girl) pink things.

I'm jealous--I wish I had eight people to clean the house and fix dinner while I go have a baby. But one must start without such advantages.

We have radio working!! Now I can listen to the classical station all day--except of course, over noon, when the old time radio dramas come on. Hurrah! (We never got it working at the old place, so this is a first-time-ever occurrence.)

I no longer begrudge my brother-in-law his poached eggs and toast, even though I'm wondering if I'll be able to make the eggs last until Friday.

Going crazy

Reader's Digest this month had an article on the Andrea Yates case; shed some interesting light on the "homeschool mom who goes crazy from being stuck at home with too many kids" cast that it seemed to have when it was playing in the media. Mrs. Yates had apparently suffered from bipolar disorder since she had been a teenager; it had worsened after her fourth child and she had become suicidal. (Plus the family seemed to have a certain lack of common sense--say deciding after having three children that it would be better to live in a trailer than in a house.)

So no, normal people do not just go off and kill their kids, even if they have a lot of them and stay with them all the time.

Weird dream pertaining to maternity clothes:

Last week, before going shopping, I dreamed about going shopping for maternity clothes. In my dream I found a very good sale on some attractive denim jackets. This was an excellent deal. It was such a good deal that DOB got excited and started calling all his law school buddies to ask them if we wanted them to pick up jackets for them. Somehow I was unable to explain to him that they probably were not in the market for maternity-sized jackets.

No doubt this reveals some deep psychological attempt to come to terms with my new identity or something.

And I didn't even remember to buy a jacket when I went shopping!

I'm posting online tests; how cheesy. But I was highly amused by the "Which Rule of Federal Procedure are you?" question. (I'm Rule 11, requiring proper investigation of claims before filing; DOB is the easy-going Rule 8(a), whose rule can be summed up, as in the poem I composed while studying these:

"In most states, or in federal court,
A statement that is plain and short
Of claim to ease the plaintiff's grief
Must show that he can get relief."

And then there is the one my weird aunt posted on Multiple Intelligences.

The Seven Intelligence Areas

Linguistic: 9
Logical-Mathematical: 9
Spatial: 3
Bodily-Kinesthetic: 6
Musical: 6
Interpersonal: 6
Intrapersonal: 3

A Short Definition of your Highest Score

Linguistic - the ability to use language to describe events, to build trust and rapport, to develop logical arguments and use rhetoric, or to be expressive and metaphoric. Possible vocations that use linguistic intelligence include journalism, administrator, contractor, salesperson, clergy, counselors, lawyers, professor, philosopher, playwright, poet, advertising copywriter and novelist.

Logical-Mathematical - the ability to use numbers to compute and describe, to use mathematical concepts to make conjectures, to apply mathematics in personal daily life, to apply mathematics to data and construct arguments, to be sensitive to the patterns, symmetry, logic, and aesthetics of mathematics, and to solve problems in design and modeling. Possible vocations that use the logical-mathematics intelligence include accountant, bookkeeper, statistician, tradesperson, homemaker, computer programmer, scientist, composer, engineer, inventor, or designer.

Observations:

1. I'm still not as smart, over all, as my weird aunt. However, I slightly outscore her on logic, which is probably what helps me survive when we debate.

2. The low spatial reasoning score can be testified to by anyone who has watched me park, which was a favorite form of office amusement at my former place of employment. Now it just causes DOB to despair as I can't seem to find the curb without running over it.

3. So homemaker is a prime career choice for us logical/mathematical people. I feel my self-worth growing already. Now I'll go use my logical and mathematical skills to figure out how to make one week's worth of groceries last two extra days and what portions of a wardrobe can be reconfigured to use on someone with ten inches more padding around the waist.

All right, time to post random thoughts that have been lurking about. Maybe I should resolve to post one thing during breakfast every weekday. (Saturday breakfast is for leisurely conversation; Sunday breakfast is for getting food down ASAP without dumping it on church clothes.)

Clothing
Finally went shopping for maternity clothes on Friday. Not as painful as I thought--found several things that might look kind of good even when I do look like I did with that "three-month pillow" on. Ugh. And did not spend too much.

I was exhibiting my purchases to DOB and he admired a denim jumper I had selected. "Wow, you even found some second-hand stuff," he said in the tone of one commending a frugal wife. Alas, I had to explain that people deliberately try to make new denim look old in these decadent times. I did get it on clearance, though.

Acting
Why should it even be an issue, when people are selecting their "favorites" with actors whether they attractive or not? It seems rather like selecting one's auto mechanic or doctor for that reason. Shouldn't the issue be whether they can act? Sure it may be nicer to look at a pretty actor than an ugly one, but it's nicer to look at a good-looking auto mechanic, too. (For the record, the only mechanics I've ever dealt with have been family members or old.) That's one advantage of the stage--it requires acting to a much greater degree than film, so you get to watch people selected based on their ability to act.

Random Cool Chesterton Quote
And I dream of the days when work was scrappy,
And rare in our pockets the mark of mint,
When we were angry and poor and happy,
And proud of seeing our name in print.

So I was trying to rest a few days ago and reading the small-town newspaper from cover to cover because it was handy. There was an insert with an article interviewing various minor celebrities and asking them what their favorite romantic book was. One woman said "Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poems." Fine selection, and better than the drivel everyone else had selected, except then she went on to say, "I don't know whether she ever met the guy or what, but they're just so romantic blah blah blah."

OK, I realize some people slept through that part of English Lit and don't know that Elizabeth Barrett wrote those poems to Robert Browning and they eloped and lived happily ever after. But really, I would think someone with a modicum of interest in the writing might, say, read the flyleaf and find out the back story. Do people have no curiosity anymore? What good is the information age if people have no interest in the information?

Or maybe it's the overload of information itself that destroys all curiosity. I certainly feel more curious about life when I'm cut off from the internet than after an hour of surfing. So time to go develop my curiosity. Maybe with a nice nap.

We have moved. The computers are working again. The house is nice.

More entertaining comments once we've gotten rid of more visible boxes and I've caught up on sleep.