So I’m back like a nasty weave on an oblivious negro’s head, after a test that shook the very foundation of my soul, an exam that found me looking hard at my image in the mirror proclaiming “Self, e be like say water don pass garri oh!” Yes, I was remorselessly humbled. By mere ink.
In my time away I also ventured into the cemented plains of the modern jungle. I trudged through the wild terrains of the ‘dark’ continent a.k.a Da Tod World. I went to one of my fave places in the whole wide world, Nigeria. You know that no one appreciates drama like Nigerians, we love, revere, worship and ensure it has its glorious moments. So tales on the motherland shall be coming soon;-)
But I digress.
Today’s exactly one month from the day I took the bar exam. By this time last month I was in a room with many other confused souls, trying to lie our way through an exam that was solely created to measure endurance not intelligence. The 2 days of the NY bar were an entertaining experience, I realised for the umpteenth time why I despise lawyers so. The Buffalo centre was the smallest in the country but somehow we managed to account for almost five thousand souls. Yes, all jockeying to be lawyers. Why?!?!?
I hate lawyers. Put many lawyers in one place and you soon realise that we are the most egotistical, arrogant and annoying group of homo-sapiens in the world’s oxygen space. From the insufferable know-it-all’s in the Yale hoodies to those masking inferiority complexes by wearing superior sneers in their University ‘at’ Buffalo hoodies (until you see the 'grimy-ness' of Buffalo, you may not fully appreciate my eternal irritation with the members of this university who were actually bold enough to act superior, brave enough to brandish their school hoodies in such a public gathering and brazen enough to act superior WHILE wearing said hoodie. Er….you need more people, 2 midgets AND a dwarf to confirm that you are indeed as great as you keep telling us you are- Signed, the other 3559 billion humans.)
The test lasted for 2 days and after having to leave our hotel at half 7 each morning, best believe I was too inrritated (and nervous) to stomach students, uncles & grandparents alike, boasting of their numerous qualifications (which is what talkative lawyers love to do with their free time; acting like they are in a perpetual courtroom with the entire world their willing listeners).
In my time away I also ventured into the cemented plains of the modern jungle. I trudged through the wild terrains of the ‘dark’ continent a.k.a Da Tod World. I went to one of my fave places in the whole wide world, Nigeria. You know that no one appreciates drama like Nigerians, we love, revere, worship and ensure it has its glorious moments. So tales on the motherland shall be coming soon;-)
But I digress.
Today’s exactly one month from the day I took the bar exam. By this time last month I was in a room with many other confused souls, trying to lie our way through an exam that was solely created to measure endurance not intelligence. The 2 days of the NY bar were an entertaining experience, I realised for the umpteenth time why I despise lawyers so. The Buffalo centre was the smallest in the country but somehow we managed to account for almost five thousand souls. Yes, all jockeying to be lawyers. Why?!?!?
I hate lawyers. Put many lawyers in one place and you soon realise that we are the most egotistical, arrogant and annoying group of homo-sapiens in the world’s oxygen space. From the insufferable know-it-all’s in the Yale hoodies to those masking inferiority complexes by wearing superior sneers in their University ‘at’ Buffalo hoodies (until you see the 'grimy-ness' of Buffalo, you may not fully appreciate my eternal irritation with the members of this university who were actually bold enough to act superior, brave enough to brandish their school hoodies in such a public gathering and brazen enough to act superior WHILE wearing said hoodie. Er….you need more people, 2 midgets AND a dwarf to confirm that you are indeed as great as you keep telling us you are- Signed, the other 3559 billion humans.)
The test lasted for 2 days and after having to leave our hotel at half 7 each morning, best believe I was too inrritated (and nervous) to stomach students, uncles & grandparents alike, boasting of their numerous qualifications (which is what talkative lawyers love to do with their free time; acting like they are in a perpetual courtroom with the entire world their willing listeners).
Man: “Oh, I am just doing this just for fun, I am qualified in Wyoming, Kansas and Oaklahoma, I just thought it would be fun to see how easy the New York state bar exam is. I don’t need it”
Me*thinks*: "WELL THEN, SIT YO OL' ASS AT HOME THEN or reduce your volume here!"
OR the lady whispering word for word Property Law, exactly as it was written in the book…all while her face got redder as she held her breath in a bid to remember every 'is', 'or '& 'of'…Oh how I longed for her to cast her mind towards the 'go', 'to' & 'hell' categories. *Sigh*.
For some reason I was seated at the very centre of some students from Syracruse University(it's o.k to draw a blank at this point) who insisted on loudly conversing with each other like so: “John, remember when we did Homicide in Torts with Professor McDermott and I got the highest grade in the class?" To which John would reply in the affirmative and go on to replace thay story with a tale of his own Legal Herculean feats. All such tales always ended with the teller achieving glorious grades. In other words, they are smart people. (Again, dear midgets and solo dwarf, we need your presence in confirmation of these dubious tales.)
The last straw as far as I was concerned were the 2 Nigerian ladies…you know say Nigeria no dey carry last! Wherever there are humans congregating, Nigerians must be counted in their number. Nefarious or honourable, Naija must dey. So there I was, after the first round of questions had played Ludo with my emotions, sitting alone outside at break time, meditating on my life; trying hard to not consider alternative careers as lawyers around me boasted of the great feats their intelligent brains allowed them to achieve in the exam hall. I was taking my anger out on my sandwhich and picking on my meagre lunch, when came these two ladies who like Miss Muppet’s Spider, sat down beside me. I knew from ‘Go!’ that these two ladies came from the Western zones of Mama Africa.
Was it the gel-packing hair style of the first woman? Or the red and gold braids reminiscent of that wayward singer Patra *dips & falls back* that scraped the second ladies bum? Or the slipper-sandal concoctions with their mutli patterned and multi-coloured surface and pointed tip so sharp each lady could, I suspect, stand on one shoe and draw a perfect circle with the other leg of her shoe….so pointed were the shoes' tips. Such was its compass-like quality.
The bright coloured matching top and trouser spandex/lycra combination reminiscent of nollywood starlets like Ini Edo just added to the general vibe of that ‘Nigerian Aunty With The Sweetest Gist About Everyone’. I was already smiling before they sat down. My smile quickly turned into a full blown laugh as they, oblivious to the fascinated face watching them, began to discuss their exam tactics; apparently after not doing any studying they had taken the exam on a whim and with much prayer and fasting. They claimed they were assured of success. When confronted with questions that looked like they were written in rural Japanese, Lady One said she just dropped her pencil, slept for a while….then awoke and began to pray and ask the spirit to “….just do the work, I don’t want to do anything.” She opened her eyes and just began to shade any answer on the objective test answer sheet. All led by the spirit.
I was hard pressed to tell her that the Chinese girl next to me also employed this tactic…she slept for half the time, woke up and began shade. Without once glancing at the question paper. I wonder what spirit spoke to her.
The bright coloured matching top and trouser spandex/lycra combination reminiscent of nollywood starlets like Ini Edo just added to the general vibe of that ‘Nigerian Aunty With The Sweetest Gist About Everyone’. I was already smiling before they sat down. My smile quickly turned into a full blown laugh as they, oblivious to the fascinated face watching them, began to discuss their exam tactics; apparently after not doing any studying they had taken the exam on a whim and with much prayer and fasting. They claimed they were assured of success. When confronted with questions that looked like they were written in rural Japanese, Lady One said she just dropped her pencil, slept for a while….then awoke and began to pray and ask the spirit to “….just do the work, I don’t want to do anything.” She opened her eyes and just began to shade any answer on the objective test answer sheet. All led by the spirit.
I was hard pressed to tell her that the Chinese girl next to me also employed this tactic…she slept for half the time, woke up and began shade. Without once glancing at the question paper. I wonder what spirit spoke to her.
![Another bar preparation class and we are rounding up on Torts. Tort teacher is a bloody joker which makes the entire process much easier, thank God. Today, he says something that made me laugh AND think (this is huge because such mutually exclusive factors; laughing and thinking, rarely ever simultaneously exist…especially not in a law lecture. So gold star for you, Mr. Torts Teacher). He was talking about The Tort of Outrageous Conduct…..Bet you didn’t think that existed right? Well it does, so stop terrorising old ladies as they attempt to frustrate drivers by slouching snail-paced across the busy city streets. [Random side-note, American tort law almost works like what I understand of a civil law system, which is not much, but it seems they really try to cover every potential eventuality. It seems impossible but they have gone surprisingly far in addressing almost every possible situation that I can think about!! Cool!!!! iNerd]. But as usual, I digress. I was talking about my torts bar prep class. So the teacher is this Al-Pacino…..actually I’m not sure who Al-Pacino is and I’m too lazy to google’mage but he sounds like a Brooklyn-born-Italian-raised-The Sopranos-main-character-looking- guy, which is exactly what my torts teacher is. Anyhooooooo, as a true new Yorker [Brooklyn native], my teacher says he thinks The Tort of Outrageous Conduct is rather daft. Why? Cos nothing really qualifies as ‘outrageous conduct’ to a New Yorker. This made me smile because I think that shameless, slightly misplaced pride resonates with almost everyone that lives/lived in a big city. According to him, the unofficial official motto for New Yorkers is “Forget About It!” He said a typical New Yorker (synonymous in my mind with a Londoner/Lagosian/Parisiene etc) might be mid-commute, sitting on the subway and opposite him, calm as a baby whose milk has been spiked with rum by her tired mother, a fellow commuter sits, sipping his Pepsi…..from a severed human head. At this point, a lesser mortal may jump and burst into dramatics….”NOT I” said the cat…as does the seasoned commuter. Our commuter sees pseudo-voodoo king calmly sipping and potentially contemplating whose head looks nice enough to consume and as a true city warrior, the legendary busy-street dweller just, calmly, flips her newspaper/book/changes the song on her ipod….(to something appropriate like Ad Mortem by some Franz Ferdinand type). Nothing fazes a city slicker,. After witnessing all sorts of barbarism the likes of which is reserved for display on public transportation, you get off the tube or ‘Danfo’ and with a shake of your neatly coiffed hair and a slightly irritated mutter of “Crazy Lagosians/Bloody stupid Londoners/Possesed New Yorkers!” , you exit at your stop….traipsing off to compare tales with your friends on the madness of city dwellers….and getting ready to board the very same train/bus tomorrow. Because seriously, it’s not that serious! *Le Sigh* I miss living in London…..true talk, my friend almost sat on a syringe on the tube today!!! *Shakes neatly coiffed hair * I love cities, I’m allergic to nature so concrete over trees any day baybay. Not sure what I’m doing in leafy Cali just yet. The randomness of big cities never fails to amuse my soul. Quick story, 2 weeks ago I was in NY. Strolling down the street in my glorified glory, Diva Dust billowing at my feet as birds stopped mid-chirp to bask in the ambience of my fabulosity, LOL, a friend was by my side when we got approached by this ragamuffin looking hombre. The kind that just makes you re-evaluate yourself and prompts questions like “ Oh lord, what is this invisible scent that I have that ‘Dawgs’ like this ‘Kat’ in front of me think its perfectly ok to walk up to me and begin ‘a-conversating’?!?!?!” So this dog-cat[I MUST cut BET from my diet, when grown men begin to refer to each other as domestic pets then you know the apocalypse is upon us], asks us for our names as we’re walking. Taking the piss (because I figure the universe must be having a laugh at my expense, I might as well play along) I say my friend is Gonorrhea and I’m Syphilis. He asks, “Tiffany??”…causing me to shout “SY-PHEEEEE-LLLIS”…on the crowded street. He looks upset and spends the next 2 minutes telling us to stop playing as we insist those were the names we were christened with. After about 5 minutes of ‘conversating’ with oxygen, as we strolled past him on our merry way, he stops in frustration and screams down the busy, crowded NY street “OK THEN, SEE YOU LATER GONORREAH AND SYPHILIS”…to much laughter and stupid sly smiles from people around. Slightly embarrassed but determined to have the last word, I scream back “ Goodbye AIDS!!”. Ah, good times, I heart NYC…..and life before bar prep.](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiQkDVBrbuTsBbUmRToE0-_g5ZfThyJ-BErccK-Ybn-Q2m0RAfqoMWzJ1c12gJtrBn7q2qEJnx_vWWZWwdkHJ-cOkrFlxF6NO_6pmUtHyN3TUm9MoP6PMAPQwK41dxCfLyR-KgsGncOHRf/s1600-h/NY.bmp){kind=link}