So close ... so close ...

I couldn't help but laugh.

As I walked through the muggy parking lot at the Desmond Hotel, 1.5 miles from the Albany airport, I saw a girl's face as she sat in her car talking on a cell phone ... and I couldn't help but laugh.

All of the sudden, the whole, sadistic hazing-on-a-grand-legalized-scale just smacked me in the face. I mean, the girl looked like she was about to cry. Now, it may not have been because of the bar. She might have been experiencing some other tragic, painful, drawn-out and confidence smashing event I didn't know about; but then again, res ipsa loquitur* ... ha, ha.

But even if her near-tears were entirely unrelated to the exam, seeing her face made me realize the tremendous silliness of the whole process. And I just had to chortle a little.

As I write this, I still have one-fourth of the bar left ... the second half of the Multistate portion. It's not over yet ... and if I don't pass, maybe it never will be ;)** Still, I can't help but feel a little relief that even in the midst of the most sorrow-inducing academic event of my life, I was able to detach myself, look back at everything unfortunate that's happened over the past few months - the craziness, the anger, the frustration, and the hopelessness - and laugh.

And if I don't pass***, that may be one heck of a consolation prize.

* Latin meaning "The Thing Speaks for Itself." A little legal joke ... very little ... so little that ... oops, there it goes ...

** Knock on wood ... knock on wood ... find me a piece of wood, dang it!

*** More wood ... MORE WOOD!