remember, remember the fifth of september

i think this month will be filled with "by this time last year..." posts.

by this time last year, i finished my first bar sunday. i shared the room with two blockmates. and i barely slept the night before. not that i reviewed a lot of stuff the day before but i just couldnt fall asleep fast enough (fell asleep between 1am and 2am) and i was worried of going into a deep sleep (so i slept very lightly that i heard the sound of paper being slipped under my hotel door).

i remember dropping the readings i was reviewing that saturday by 11:30pm. the last materials i read were the decisions by Justice Carpio-Morales. then i watched one last girls' generation music video then went to sleep (that was one of the reasons i always brought a laptop every saturday before the bar sunday. when i start to panic, all i had to do was watch one of their videos and i start to think that things will be okay. i still do that until now). like i said, i fell asleep more than an hour later. and i really didnt get to sleep very well. next thing i know, one of my law school friends was calling my cellphone to make sure i was awake (i didnt know then that the hotel provides a wake up call so i requested my friend to do it the night before). i got up, read the materials that was slipped under my door, took a good cold shower then had breakfast at the hotel's dining area. went back to my hotel room, a good friend brought me my lunch, then my family went to my hotel room to wish me good luck. a few more law school friends also dropped by to wish me well for the first bar sunday.

i left my stuff at the hotel's receptionist area then walked to la salle. i surrended my cellphones at the guard station then started looking for my room assignment (felt like a high school student looking for my class section). i was assigned in the same room with two blockmates/law school friends. since we were the ones who didnt graduate on time, being in the same room with them was really good. its nice to have a familiar face during that time. made me think of our freshmen year and at the same time, brings some kind of comfort.

the bar exams started, i made my first memorable mistake. i used the box of pens that was a year old. so naturally, most, if not all of the pens had "stale" ink. after using five pens, i raised my hand and told the proctor that im going to get my other box of pens. when i got back to my seat, i thought that my seatmate probably thinks im some idiot. anyway, because of the ballpen incident, i didnt notice i skipped a page. the page that says "start at this page". that was my second memorable mistake. i noticed that i skipped that page when i was already halfway through the exam. crap! fortunately, i skipped the first item so all i had to do was make sure that my first answer was two pages long in order to make use of all the blank pages.

the rules for taking the bar exam are really strict. and i think that there's truth in the saying that poor penmanship contributes in failing the bar exams. my penmanship sucks. but i tried to improve it for months just for the bar exams.