ril's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bar For No Reason Bar For No Reason My son arrived today to spend his half-summer with me. In years past we�ve made it a point to go on fairly involved adventures (rappelling in Utah, river rafting in Virginia, etc.). This year however, his sister (The Princess) is here and they couldn�t agree on what it was they wanted to do together (that I was willing to pay for) and so they agreed that we�d have a close-to-home vacation this year (the standard theme park sort of thing)� Last Christmas was the first time they�d seen each other in a while, and this will be their first chance in several years to spend substantial time together� The Princess and The Boy have always gotten along well together, which is sort of (but perhaps not too) strange given their 9 year difference in age� but get along they do� Even when The Boy was barely out of diapers, The Princess would take him with her to visit her young teenage friends down the street where we lived (and she didn�t put up with any crap from her friends about it either� the two of them were a package deal and she would � if necessary � leave her friends to be with The Boy)� they played computer games together (he�d sit on her lap for hours watching her play)� she�d talk with him for hours about the games he�d make up on paper� there is simply a very special bond between them that warms my heart to see � Yep� I am very much looking forward to the rest of this summer. On a completely different topic, the results of the April patent bar exam were posted today, and I am pleased to report that I passed� The strange thing about my passing this particular exam is that I don�t really have any intention of every practicing patent law� it�s just not something I want to do for a living (though Lord knows it pays a boat-load of money)� the whole patent prosecution process strikes me as about as interesting a watching paint dry� I think the reason I took the thing in the first place (I actually took it once before) was because it was supposed to be a challenge. Not only is the pass rate normally somewhere near 50% (it was 37% when I took it the first time), you can�t even sit for the thing if (essentially) you don�t have a science or engineering undergraduate degree� and how many attorneys have science or engineering degrees and want to practice patent law? Not many� I probably could (and would) have gotten over the novelty of the whole thing if I'd just waited... In fact, I think the only reason I decided to climb this particular mountain in the first place was because I was bored to tears during my last year of law school (though I�d have tried to save some of that spare time up if I�d known what life as a first and second year associate was going to be like). The problem is, once I failed the thing, it just irritated me� I mean, I don�t want to be (too) arrogant, but I hadn�t failed a test since sometime in junior high school� on the other hand, I have to tell you that (and I�ve taken and passed three different state bar exams) this is the hardest test I�ve ever taken (and so maybe I should have studied for more than a couple of days the first time�. nah� that�s not it)� Still, even though I�ve never needed to pass the thing (in the your-job-depends-on-it sense), I just felt bad about having let the thing beat me� and so, when the first real opportunity came along to do some studying (in my �spare� time � ha!) I decided to take the dang thing again� and I�m pretty pleased with myself right about now� - 2003-06-06 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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