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Well, today is the final day of the bar exam.  We woke up to find our hotel bill slipped under our door.  I’m happy to report that it is less than both Kirsten and I were thinking it might be.  Even with room service!  I have already carried down several bags to the car and moved it from street parking (they start ticketing/towing at 7am) to the ramp.  That will be nice so that we can just get in the car and go by the time Kirsten is done at 4:30ish today.

We’re very excited that she’ll be done today.  Today’s bar exam festivities include the multi-state multiple choice questions, one hundred in the morning and one hundred in the afternoon.  She’s been scoring pretty well on the practice exams for these, so we have our fingers crossed.

Please continue to pray for Kirsten that she’d have a smooth final day of testing.

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Today marks day four of this epic event in Kirsten’s and my life.

We woke up the same time that we did yesterday.  I went down immediately to move our car off of the street into the ramp parking, and our room service breakfast was delivered.  Today was supposed to be less scary than yesterday.  We knew what the essay topics for today were supposed to be because we knew what topics were yesterday and we knew which ones were left, or so we thought.

I waited for Kirsten in the same spot as I had been.  Sure enough, her head popped up above the escalator right at about 11:40am, ten minutes after the morning session was done.  She calmly explained to me that apparently, she had mistaken one of the question’s subjects yesterday.  Today, instead of getting what she was expecting, she got something else.  For example, yesterday’s question she thought had been about Torts, and thus today was expecting Civil Procedure, but it was vice versa.  So it wasn’t a problem, her answer yesterday still was correct (or so she was hoping), but it meant that she had studied all the wrong law last night.  *sigh*

Overall, she was still encouraged by her performance that morning.  The phrase she keeps using is “tentatively optimistic.”  We came back to our hotel room and had lunch - our left overs from Cheesecake Factory, yum!  She looked over her stuff for the afternoon’s session some, relaxed some, and then we headed back over.  The session this afternoon was an easier time, where the test taker is required to look over a set of facts and law that is provided to you, and then write a legal memo or letter.  Basically, to show that you do know aspects of legal writing.  In practice exams, Kirsten had no trouble with this portion.

After dropping her off, I went back to our hotel room and read Wolves of the Calla for a little while.  At three o’clock, I met my friend Sean again for a quick drink.  He dropped me off at the convention center at about 4:30 and I met Kirsten again about 4:45pm.  She was exhausted, her hand especially was tired after writing all day, but she felt good that she was 2/3 done with  the bar exam over all.  We ran out to Granite City in Clive, IA to grab a quick bite to eat that included their buffalo wings, perhaps my all time favorites.

Now Kirsten is studying for the multi-state, multiple choice portion of the test.  We’ll pack some bags tomorrow and I’ll load the car up in the morning.  We have to be checked out by noon, so I’ll have everything in the car and the car in the ramp by then for sure.  I’ll pick Kirsten up from her last session and we’ll head on home for Cedar Falls!

Almost there!  Keep on praying for her!  We really appreciate all the support we’ve been getting!

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Well, I’d say the second half of our day was also a success.  After my last post, Kirsten spent a little more time studying in our hotel room, but for the most part, was simply ready to get this test started.  Anxiety built as we neared 1:00pm.  When the time finally came, I packed up my stuff and we grabbed her pencils, her pen, her highlighter, and her bar exam test ID card and left for the convention center.  We got there quickly and said our good byes.

I went on to the Kaliediscope Hub again.  I purchased a Sprite (only because it was the only caffeine free soda there) and two cookies from Subway and sat down to begin reading through my novel some more.  Not too far in, I saw someone I knew.  A friend who used to work at the Help Desk in Iowa City and now works here in Des Moines.  We chatted for a few minutes and then he moved back on to work.  I stayed in the hub for probably another 45 minutes.

I then came back to our hotel room and read for a while.  I also hunted for some inspirational tunes to perk me up on Amazon’s MP3 store.  The songs are generally cheaper than iTunes and also have no DRM (Digital Rights Management).  I found one of my favorites that Kirsten’s sister got me started on - Hosanna, by Paul Baloche.  Then, my friend Sean called.  He was coming down town and wanted to know if I wanted to grab a drink with him.

Sean picked me up at about 3:00pm and we went to a local watering hole for a quick beer and to chat.  Then, he dropped me off around 4:15 at the convention center where I picked Kirsten up a little after 4:30pm.  She was estactic!  She had thought the test had gone really well!  She confirmed she was exhausted, but that the four essays had been relatively easier than she expected over all.  We came home to our hotel room and she quickly looked up some of the facts she had asserted in her answers to find she had been by and large, correct on all counts!  We were estatic.

We celebrated by having dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, by Jordan Creek Mall.  It was delicious!  Kirsten is now studying some more and we’ll hit the hay early again.  Thanks to every one who is praying and helping her out.  She can’t thank you enough, or really explain how good it feels to have so many people rooting for her and praying for her.

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Today marks the first day of the actual bar exam festivities.  We woke up early, around 6:30am, and quickly got ready for the day.  I ran down to check on our car (parked on the street outside our hotel) and just in time too.  It turns out that the side of the street I was parked in was a no-park zone between the hours of seven AM and nine AM due to a school loading zone.  I moved the car into the nearby parking ramp, biting the bullet and ready to pay the parking fees.

I got back upstairs right as our room service breakfast was being delivered.  Kirsten had a “build your own” omlet with red and yellow peppers in it.  I had scrambled eggs and ate most of Kirsten’s hash browns and sausage.  The coffee left something to be desired, so I still craved my decaf.  We left the room at about 8:05am, she was required to report by 8:30.

In the hallway leaving our room, we met another girl who was taking the bar exam too.  Good thing for her, because she didn’t know where she was supposed to be going.  I lead the caravan through the skywalk t0 the convention center.  I said my goodbyes then returned to our hotel room.  I packed up some stuff and made my way to the food court, more commonly known as the “Kaliediscope Hub.”  There I purchased more coffee and worked on editing my novel.

Lo and behold, Kirsten showed up looking for me right around 9:35.  She was already done with orientation.  We talked for a while then came back to our hotel room.  There we found this guy waiting for us:

Today I’m reading my own novel, tentatively named The Alexander File.  We’ll see if that sticks.  I plan to start rewriting the novel in August (second draft).

Kirsten has to report back to the testing facility at 1:15pm.  She’ll be taking the first portion of the bar exam, the first half of the Iowa-specific essay portion.  She should be done around 4:30pm.  The construction noise combined with the noise of a new family in a room directly below us points towards small studying prospects…*sigh*

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Last night’s dinner with our friend Sean and his girl friend was a success.  Splash was fantastic.  Kirsten had Mahi Mahi and I had shrimp.  There was some sort of music festival going on in downtown Des Moines at that time, I later learned it to be called 515 Alive.  We walked briefly through the festivities and everyone there appeared to be having a good time.  Alas, we went home, not really into Techno and also tired.

Today we got up earlier and went to church at the Jordan Creek Family Church.  It currently meets out of the Century Theaters in the Jordan Creek Mall.  We’d been there one other time while visiting Des Moines with Kirsten’s family.  We met our friends, newly moved to the Des Moines area from Cedar Falls, at church and then went to have lunch at their new place aftwards, it was a great time.

We made it back to our hotel around 2:00pm and Kirsten resumed studying.  I read for a while then napped for a couple of hours.  We took a break right before dinner to “rehearse our route” to the Polk County Convention Center through the Skywalk from our hotel.  It takes us about five and a half minutes to make it, not half bad!

Then we came home and made more sandwiches for dinner.  You ask me, what’s getting me through this time of supporting Kirsten?  And I answer:

That’s right, Pringles.  Pringles help me keep up my energy and help Kirsten keep up hers too. 

What am I reading now?  I’m back to Stephen King’s Dark Tower series.  I picked up book five again, which I’m about half way through from a previous attempt.  Wolves of the Calla is pretty good so far, perhaps one of my favorites in the series.

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We arrived in Des Moines last night at about 7:30pm.  We found our hotel, the Renaissance Savery, and checked in with no trouble.  Our room is on the tenth floor and really is amazing.  We have a perfect view of the state capitol building from one of the windows in our suite.

We slept in a little this morning and got up with one thing in mind: finding a Starbucks for our weekend morning fix.  We found one not six blocks away and went for a walk.  We found it easily and enjoyed venti decaf americanos.  What a great drink.  Kirsten studied a litle while we were there and I got a few pages of my novel edited.

We then left and went back to the Savery.  Kirsten studied while I read.  I then located a grocery store not too far away and went on an expedition to find groceries for the remainder of our stay.  Our suite has a kitchenette in it, so we are able to store some food.  When I got back we had turkey sandwiches for lunch.

Tonight we are going out to eat with our friend Sean and his girlfriend.  We’re trying out a seafood place a block from the Savery called “Splash.”  It sounds great!

Today I finished the novel, The Shack, by William P. Young.  Despite some intermittent questionable theology, it was pretty good and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for an emotional read.

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