As I was writing the previous blog, my wife delivered a beautiful baby... GIRL!

I called the hotel and left a message asking them if I could postpone my reservation so that I can check in on Sunday rather than today. That way I can spend Shabbos with my newly augmented family.

-ZS

In delivery room now with wife having our baby (yes, the bris if its a boy will be on DAY 3 of the NY bar exam.)

We are literally days away from the bar exam, and I'm sitting in the hospital waiting room down the hall from the delivery room where my wife is sharing our third baby with the world. She's giving birth now as we speak.

Until now (and even up to and including last night), I was really worried that she might have a boy, and being Jewish, that would mean that his circumcision (being on the 8th day) would fall out on the day of my NY BAR EXAM. This has been a joke between us. "Don't have a baby on the Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday before the bar exam, or else I might have to miss it because of the bris." Of course, this has only been a joke until last night, when at 3am, I heard her talking to her doctor on the phone.

I half thought to myself that if I went back to sleep that she wouldn't want to wake me and she'd go back to sleep too and she'd have the baby another day. Haha no dice. We went to the hospital at 4am this morning because she was having regular contractions. Now, almost 10 hours later (it's been a long, but calm labor), she's doing the final pushing. Why am I not in the delivery room with her? Because we're in Niddah, silly! Chassidic Jewish men don't watch the births of their children. (This is probably why we have so many of them - we don't have the image of the crowning burned into our brains and so when our wives heal, we see them in the same way we've always seen them -- just like the day we were married.)

Anyway, so if it's a boy (and we both think it will be a boy), the bris will fall out on DAY 3 of my bar exam. If that is the case, I will have to have the bris NEXT THURSDAY before DAY 3 of my bar exam. I don't know how this can work out because I would have to stay up the night before saying tehillim, and we would have to have it early early in the morning (or perhaps the evening beforehand? is that even done? I have to call my rav) and then I would have to drive as fast as I can to the bar exam around an hour away from our house. Next Thursday is also TAANAS ESTHER, a FAST DAY (to add to the interesting details of the day).

With all this, I can't deny that this was all G-d's plan. It was his plan for us to move to Crown Heights. It was his plan for me to have the bad experiences I did these past few months. It was his plan for me to be sued causing me weeks of trembling nervousness on top of having to study for the bar exam, and lastly, (if it's a boy), it'll have been his plan to have the bris next Thursday on Taanis Esther and Day 3 of my bar exam. I'm rolling with all this. I don't know what will come of it, or how it will turn out, but I'm calm now that it's no longer in my hands.

...I wonder if this means that I'll have to withdraw from the bar exam altogether. I wonder why everything has happened exactly as it has. Oh well, this is our life. Baruch Hashem!

One question I have for the ladies and happily married men out there -- I was supposed to check into a hotel this afternoon (Thursday afternoon) and stay there until the end of my bar exam next Thursday. Now that the baby will have been born, I'm no longer leaving a pregnant wife, but a wife with two children and a new baby. The plan so far has been that we're all moving into her parent's house 10 minutes away from our apartment for the next few days so that they can help her with the new baby. What I'm wondering however is whether I should cancel the hotel or postpone checking in (regardless of whether I'd lose money) until, say, after Shabbos, or until Sunday or Monday. The bar is Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. What do you think? What kind of man would I be if tonight I drove off to the hotel to study? Truthfully, I really NEED to study, and I completely lost today's study day because I've been at the hospital all day. I fear that I won't pass without going. ...but if it's a boy, I might not be able to take the bar anyway if I can't arrange for the bris to work out.

Please share your thoughts.

-Zoe



...gotta run. The nurses have called me back into the room. Delivery is complete!

I want to be a government agent.

Today was a hugely productive day. I made a makeshift desk in between my wife's bed and my bed using a wooden insert that we leave out of the dining room table because it makes the room too small. I studied all day without pause, and by the time nightfall arrived, I was happy with my accomplishment.

I do not know whether I will pass the bar, but I will do everything in my power to better my chances without losing my sense of humanity. I might be a post-graduate law student, but I'm still a human being.

This evening I watched the pilot episode from season one of Alias. I've been thinking about it for some time now, and so I decided to go online to see if anyone has it available to watch. I was so excited throughout the first episode that after it was over, I noticed four burn marks across the base of my thumb from the heatsync on my laptop which has a tendency to overheat. It's not painful and it will probably fade in time, but it combined with the show gave me a powerful feeling that I don't have to be ordinary. There are people who do exciting things, and I wouldn't mind being the type of person who kept secrets. I already do, so what would be the big change if I did it for a career? My whole life is one big secret.

The hardest thing to come to grips about is that I am (and I emphasize am) a nobody. I have few friends, and even they are spread around the world living different lives than I am. My life is that of a religious reject with a law degree who doesn't like his surroundings and who doesn't connect with the people around him. I'm an actor standing in the role of my life, and for the benefit of those around me, I am happy to be in the lives of those who have dedicated their lives to being part of my family. I love my wife. I would be empty without her. I care deeply for her, and I think about her all the time. That doesn't mean that it wouldn't be nice to have some action in my life.

The fact that the highlight of my life as it is now is showing up in a room with a bunch of men who read words off of a page and sway back and forth in prayer kills me. I cannot believe THIS is my goal in life - to be one of them. Spiritually, I need more. I read some time ago that from a Jewish perspective, meditation is for someone who needs meditation. A healthy functioning person shouldn't feel the need for meditation. You know what, however? I feel the need to meditate.

On another level, I'm bored with the opportunities as they have presented themselves to me, and I'm bored even with the goals and dreams I have set for myself because I feel they are so limited and mindless. I want to be an attorney, woo hoo, great goal. I accomplished it long ago. I want to work in a law firm... WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD I WANT TO DO THAT?

I want danger. I want risk. I want skills that I use on a daily basis. I want to be like a sharp scalpel in my practice. I want what I do to matter. I want out from all these laws and rules in life. I want to speak with people in foreign countries in foreign languages about something important and secret. I want to live an adventurous life. I want to gather information, identify issues, make inferences, take action like a government agency such as NSA does. I want to know who or what Echelon is. I want to understand what Einstein 2 is, and I want to be one of the people who directs projects and missions. There's something that separates a regular ignorant on the street and someone in the know. I want to be in the know.

Complaining about bar-study conditions.

I wanted to take a moment to write about my feelings about my studying for the bar and about things that are going on.

Firstly, I have been going to Starbucks to study; I'm here now taking a 5-minute break (really a 10 minute one) before resuming my studies. I am freaking out that we are getting so DANGEROUSLY CLOSE to the bar exam, and that there are SO MANY TOPICS THAT I KNOW I DO NOT KNOW! The last time I studied for a bar exam, I was still single and I had full mobility and er, sovereignty to move and study when and where I wanted to. Now, I'm limited by my family constraints which really KILL my ability to effectively study.

First of all, I can't study in the morning until after 9am when I drop my kids off to school (or my wife more frequently does) because even if I woke up in the morning, the kids wake up before I do and I can get NOTHING done when they're around. Secondly, now that I'm here at Starbucks, I've gotten a good 2.5 hours of studying done, but in half an hour, I'll need to pack up and leave because my wife needs the car to pick up our son.

I really have violated my own rules and guidelines that I set for myself to study for the bar. First of all, I promised myself that I would go to morning Barbri classes. After class, I would have lunch, and then study for around 5 hours and be home in time for dinner. This NEVER EVEN ONCE happened.

After my morning class, I ALWAYS CAME HOME so that my wife can have the car. Then when I was home at 12pm, I never got even a chance to study until 4:30pm. How? Well, I got home at 12pm, spoke to my wife a bit, printed some documents, ate some lunch, and then it was 2:30pm when my wife picked up our son. It wasn't until 4:30pm that I could get out of the house at the earliest, and even then, most of the time I stayed home trying to study at home (usually unsuccessfully causing a fight between me and my wife in the process). I studied the best I could and come seven or eight o'clock when the kids were finally asleep, I never studied even once.

More common was this schedule. I woke up in the morning, waited until 8:30a until my wife dropped our son off at school. Then when she returned at 9am, I went to Starbucks until 1pm getting three hours of work done (and wasting another hour trying to get the computer to work, or to pack up and unpack the computer and everything every time I needed to take a bathroom break (which was quite frequent because coffee goes right through me)). Then at 1:30pm I arrived home and didn't get out of the house until 4pm because I had to pack dinner, take a shower, help a bit with the kids, etc. 4:30pm I would actually end up in the car, and 5pm I would arrive at the Starbucks, but only with an hour before my 6pm Barbri class (most of the time I would go at night). I would stand on line, buy coffee, drive to class, park, and head in. I would usually sit down around 5:30pm and 30 minutes is not enough to do anything, so I would review my notes or browse the web until class started. After class, I'd come home at 9:30pm-9:45pm every day, and my brain would be fried. I'd try to review my notes, but shortly afterwords, I'd sit down and watch an episode of 24 or Lost or something with my wife and the night would be over.

I really feel there was not enough time to study for this exam. I set out so many tasks which I felt were BASIC FUNDAMENTAL NEEDED ACTIVITIES to simply PASS (not to excel), including 1) GETTING MY NOTES IN ORDER, 2) REVIEWING MY NOTES, 3) DOING THE ASSIGNED PRACTICE QUESTIONS, 4) DOING ESSAYS, and I almost never got past item 2 (until two weeks ago when I said "to hell with the notes; I'm doing practice questions and essays!" -- well, to date, I've done many questions but not in all topics and I still have so much to do, and I HAVEN'T EVEN APPROACHED THE ESSAYS OR THE MPT. I also have two classes to make up which I'll have to do online. Luckily, they're not main classes. I also have a number of classes where the notes are only half completed, and family law, where I haven't even begun.

I'm feeling so helpless, and I wish I could check into a hotel and get away for more than a few days before the exam. This coming Thursday, I'm checking into a hotel, but thinking about it, maybe I can arrange to get away as early as Sunday. The problem is that my wife is about to give birth any day, so this is a HIGHLY STRESSFUL TIME and I don't know what to do, whether to stay, whether to go, what to do, etc. I wish things were easier. I wish I weren't in New York where it takes me forever to get from my apartment to anywhere I can study. I lose so much time taking the train or driving around; I wish I had a desk in my home and a door I can close so that I don't have to lose 30 minutes at a time every time I have to run to the restroom.

Estranged also from myself.

Negativity drains me like someone shooting me with a Taser gun. I also hate complaining all day long because I am a trooper and a fighter, but you poor souls who have the curse of reading my blog get to hear all the "poor me" wah wah comments and postings. Sometimes I feel that if I could step out of my body I would turn around and slap myself for all my sad thoughts. There must be something so deeply wrong with me going way back to my childhood or not that has me so darn bent on seeing the world as evil and hopeless.

Tonight after my Barbri class ended early, I wanted to take some time and watch this week's episode of the Bachelor. I really wanted to see Jake with the families because I think seeing a woman with her family is a real indicator as to the quality person you have. This surprises me because I really like my wife's parents, and if my wife and I ended up like them, I wouldn't be sad in the least bit. However, let's just leave it that I ask G-d every day that I have the chance to find out what it would be like to make it to their age and still be married.

Let's switch back to the Bachelor for a moment. Everybody there is so infatuated with everyone, and I don't think any of them are in love with the other. I think they are in love with themselves, and how the other person makes them feel. Today when I saw Ali come to Jake and say, "I can't choose between you or my job," I knew it was over because IF IT WAS EVEN A QUESTION then the relationship is OVER. Now she's the whiny bitch drama queen who needs to just pretend she never met Jake because she's stupid for letting the "other love of her life -- her job" get in between the "love" (yeah, right) between her and Jake. For this reason alone I don't think she was ready to get married, and between us, I think this job thing was just used as an excuse to bow out of the show without getting kicked off of the show. People like us who have negativity oozing out never fool those around us for long; it always seeps out and destroys everyone around us if we're not careful.

Now back to my wife. I really wanted to watch this last episode of the Bachelor, and I knew my wife wasn't expecting me back from my Barbri class for another two hours, but tonight we had the MPT class and we ended with almost two hours to spare. I had internet access and headphones where I was, and even if they kicked me out, the Starbucks down the street had internet access and a couch and I totally could have disappeared for two hours and nobody would have known. However, I wanted to be kind to my wife who was home with the kids, and even if they were likely already asleep, I still couldn't chance the fact that she might be having a hard time and it would be just my luck if the day I decide to pull something like sneaking away to watch a show on Hulu is the one day she needs me (and my phone was dead so she couldn't reach me), so I went home.

Every night when I've come home, my wife was watching a show online using the slow computer (the one that barely functions because I took hers when mine went into the shop almost two weeks ago). I thought that I would watch the show (I already saw the first half while eating lunch, so I didn't think it was a big deal) so I asked her if she could continue watching her show for half an hour and then I'll give her the good laptop computer (this one is pitifully slow too, but at least it works like it should) but she refused and insisted that we trade and she get the good computer. Still in good cheer, I gave her the good computer thinking that she would ask me to join her on whatever she was watching.

Instead, she turned on Facebook and started playing Farmville, a game I DESPISE because I think it's the biggest brain-drain in the universe and it's a waste of time. Plus, she could have done that with my old slow computer. She didn't need mine (well, hers, but mine until after the bar) to play Farmville. I immediately got really upset and probably because I was highly caffeinated (I had around 5 strong coffees the hours beforehand because I spent most of the day at Starbucks studying), my blood boiled and I could have spit fire again. Instead, I grabbed a huge bag of pistachio nuts and munched away at it while watching Brian Williams on MSNBC (I don't know why I feel compelled to watch this news every night -- I am always disappointed by the lack of content) with the frame skipping making the video not watchable but I didn't care. It was either that or lose my temper.

I felt that I was kind for coming home. I felt that I was kind for offering my wife my computer. i felt betrayed that when I gave, she took, leaving me in the dirt. What did I expect? If you give, you expect the person you give to to take. I don't know why I was so angry that she didn't let me watch the Bachelor, and I don't know why I fumed over her choosing to go on Facebook rather than do something together with me after I just went through so much conflict to NOT watch the show before I came home. In my good graces (which means my warped mind) I even considered spending time with her until she went to sleep an hour or so later and then I would watch my show. But she hogged the computer I gave her and I felt she was selfish.

Instead of popping or breathing fire, I put my headphones on, went into our bedroom and listened to a Holosync Awakening Prologue session. I don't know that this does anything for me, but I've been playing a game with myself trying to see if I can get through it without falling asleep. Tonight I was so upset and angry that I stayed awake throughout the whole session. In hindsight, I did have a mind-altering experience in that I stayed awake, but in a meditative state which is an accomplishment for me, but I couldn't get over being so angry.

What frustrated me the most is that it was over something so small, tiny, and stupid. I visualized 100 times my wife climbing into my bed and giving me a hug being oblivious to the anger I had for her this night and me telling her in a nasty voice to go to hell. I went back and forth in my mind during the Holosync session whether to just drop the anger and the fight because it was over something so stupid, and I reasoned with myself that it wasn't worth the hurt to our relationship to get all worked up over something like this.

I awoke from the Holosync session (well, it ended and I lied there on the bed for a few moments feeling that my wife was still awake and was looking at me), folded up the earphones, and walked out of the room without looking back. I softly closed the door behind me and I wondered, "did she know I was so angry tonight? Did I hurt her tonight? Have I done damage to our relationship?" I visualized my daughter older coming up to me and asking, "Daddy, why did you leave us?" I couldn't imagine being a divorced father with just visitation rights and in my short hiatus into my mind, I abandoned my children thinking that a clean break would be better for them than a father that was not able to be a father to them. I cried inside my mind over my divorce and over the loss of my children. I then wanted to go back into the bedroom and kiss my wife, but I was still angry at her and I heard her snoring so I didn't want to wake her.

All in all, I really hope I don't damage my marriage or my relationship with all this emotion and anger, and I really pray that this difficult time pass and that we get a chance to be a family and that my wife and I get a chance to open up to each other (since I feel as if we've been estranged for some time), and all this extra pressure of having charges filed against me, having to defend myself against the NY Character & Fitness Board, and losing all of our unemployment and having absolutely no money come in -- well, I wish it would all go away and that I can be a successful attorney with a happy wife and a healthy home.

PS - To my new father friend also taking the bar exam (Matt), you shouldn't be spending your time reading this blog. It'll kill your time, it'll poison your mind, and it'll distract you from doing what you really should be doing instead of reading this... you should be either studying for the bar exam or doing kind acts for your wife and your children, not reading my warped misogynist thoughts.

Fuming, but really nobody's fault except my own for trying to study in my apartment with my wife and the kids screaming.

[I wrote this a few days ago but am only posting this now.] About five minutes ago, I was so angry that I could spit fire. Today is my first "crunch" day in studying for the bar. I loaded up my schedule to the brim giving myself tasks to do from 7am until 11pm -- things Barbri say I need to complete to be prepared for the bar. Since I'm one that believes in following the system to get predicted results, I almost passed out trying to keep up with the things I assigned to myself. I concluded that I couldn't finish everything, but I'll do my best and circle the tasks I didn't get to. As I get more efficient in the coming days, I'll pick up what I couldn't do today.

So my wife took the kids out to her parents all day -- this was wonderful in that she was making time for me to study and to stick to my new schedule. A few minutes before 7am, she kicked me out of bed and reminded me that I needed to get going and I did. From then until around 6:30pm, I was going full force. Then at 6:30pm, she came home and I was in the middle of my recorded lecture online.

Barbri has this funky thing that you're only allowed to listen to six make-up videos, and if you lose a connection or shut your window and listen to the same one again, that counts as if you've listened to another video, even though it's the same video your counter was already dinged for. I was listening on my broken laptop which can't be unplugged to move into another room or else it goes into hibernation mode and I lose my internet connection (and I get dinged again when I start the video back up). My wife knew I was scheduled tonight to listen to a makeup class video from 6pm - 9pm and I was under the impression that she would put the kids to bed at her parents house and watch the superbowl with them since they're all into that kind of stuff. Nope. 6:30pm she came home, and I was 1 hour into the video (I started early because I wanted to end early). I had to keep the video on pause (and I actually lost the connection costing me an extra makeup class ding) and I didn't get to return to the video until after 8:30pm when the kids finally fell asleep.

I was fuming mad, so mad that my face made angry grimaces and I couldn't control my fuming. I was so angry that my blood boiled, so much so that I am sure that I knocked at least a few months off of my life from the bodily damage I caused through the burning flames of my anger. I want to use a stronger word for flames, but I can't think of any -- plumes, flumes, fumes, whatever. Substitute it for flames in that last sentence and you'll get an idea of how angry I was. I am sure I even popped a few blood vessels in my face from being angry.

I won't go into how ironic it is that I'm able to hold back my anger even though at one point my right hand started shaking and I made a fist and let out a large breath of air that could have burned a hole in the wall eight feet across from me.

All in all, this is just one of the many experiences I had where my wife worked hard to accommodate my studying needs, but fell short which screwed me over because I lost some piece of studying that would have gotten done if she didn't interrupt me by coming home early or by some other distraction BUT WAIT! I don't fault her for this because she HAS been trying really hard to help me have time to study, and there are certain things that are simply out of her control. If she's at her parents and its getting late and the kids are screaming, she HAS TO COME HOME and if I'm there, tough luck on me.

The advice I give to other fathers taking the bar is... get as far away from your home as possible. When you are physically in your home, be 100% present, be at home, and don't think about or do any studying for the bar. If you need to study, pack up and leave for however many hours you need to study. It's not your wife's fault if you can't focus at home because she has no control over the kids, and if she's helping you out by watching them many hours a day to help you study, then she may physically not be able to go all the way to meet your study expectations.

The week before the bar, I'll be going alone to one of those cheapo hotels that have a bed, a desk, and internet access, and I'll be staying there until after the exam. It's a tough prospect to separate myself from my wife for that long, but really, I need the separation to focus and learn as much as I need to. Since my exam is at the Javits Center, I found a place right outside the city that is able to accommodate my needs.

James Ray, the Secret, and a waste of your time reading this.

Okay, how I'm doing personally. BTW, I think it sucks that Blogger took away my ability to post pictures in my blogs. Now there is just text which can lead to a visually unstimulating blog page. But who cares. My readership these days is near zero anyway.

I've been Zoe Strickman now online for almost 5 years now. I was wondering what would happen if from time to time I decided to take Zoe out for a ride in reality and start creating a character on the street with that name. You know, open a few accounts under that name, start doing business with this name, write a few books, etc. Of course, I would do this legally and I wouldn't break any laws, but then again, BYE BYE ANONYMITY. BTW, I wonder whether my wife would enjoy going on a date with Zoe rather than me. ;) Maybe I can form him into a character that is different from me -- dressing different, speaking differently, acting differently, etc. Wouldn't that be fun to sometime be Zoe and sometimes be me?

Okay, down to business... my personal life. I've been reading about how James Ray (apparently the author of the Secret and some wealth book I have in my bookshelf unread) was arrested for a few deaths and hospitalizations that occurred at his seminar. I have no opinion of him except that he's a self-help self-proclaimed guru, and he's no Anthony Robbins (who I still have a deep affection for, even though I haven't seen him in almost ten years now). There was a time that I wanted to be Tony. I acted like him, I thought like him, and I emulated him. Well, everything except his wrecked marriage and bubbly personality. Sorry, I'm too cynical for that. I wanted to BE him, and I have no doubt or regrets that I could have. Although, I have no confidence in myself and no believe that I would have succeeded, because in my eyes, I never succeed at anything. I do a lot, and I accomplish so much, but I never succeed at anything. Somewhere along the line I always hit some wall which stops me from reaping the benefits from what I sowed. That's an argument I have against G-d, and I can't believe he'd tell me, "well, if you davened and put tefilin on every day like I told you too and you guarded your thoughts you would have everything you set out to accomplish." BOLLUCKS. I did the religious thing with full devotion and with careful attention to detail and I still kept hitting the wall. I fought my yetzer hara and my evil inclinations. I prayed every day, put on tefillin, learned Torah and circled myself with truly religious people. But I never succeeded, and in truth, I broke my promise to G-d so I have nobody to blame except for myself.

I'm not going to defend myself. I still keep taharas hamishpacha, I still daven although certainly not regularly, I say every beracha and after beracha, I learn Torah each week (although not regularly), I keep kosher, Shabbat, and halacha (except the do not steal part). Maybe from a spiritual perspective I kill and murder too. I'm angry all the time and I'm sick in the head because it's a piece of cake for my imagination to feel as real as reality, but that's all between me and G-d. Nobody is ever harmed by me, I watch my tongue and my actions, I think kind thoughts, and that is the end of my explanation.

As for the bar, I'm a nervous wreck. So many topics to learn, so much to do, but not enough time to do it all. I could throw blame at my family for this, but really if I point a finger it should be at myself for not having the discipline to do more than I already have. Anyone who sees me, however, will think this is preposterous because I'm always studying. I could always be better, be more efficient, waste less time, and devote my energies more than I have. Then I'd be superhuman.

From a psychological perspective, I am daunted by the world I am sure I created around me. I feel as if my failures are from my own actions and are consequences of my habitual thoughts and if I changed my thoughts, my reality would change as well. I cannot and would never want to think away the people in my life (except the son-of-a-bitch who will get what is coming to him one day) because I feel as if my wife and children are my biggest accomplishments, and I should hope that I am my wife's biggest accomplishment. There is so much both right and wrong and I see my own responsibility for each negative and positive. I could have (and still can) make my life so much different; I could move our life in such a different direction than the horrible apparent poverty that we live in. It's just such an oxymoron that when I am working, I'm making close to 6 figures, and when I'm not, I'm making zero. My income last year was close to $60K which is very surprising considering that I was unemployed 6 months out of last year and am still unemployed to date (although now we're no longer receiving ANY income, not even unemployment, and we're digging into every penny saved just to pay the basic bills) and yet with ALL THIS, I have child number three due in just a few weeks.

My head is swirling in the fact that if things aren't tough as they are, we'll have one more set of diapers to always be buying; one more mouth to feed; one more beating heart to share our unending and limitless love with. I feel lucky that my wife and I are a team. Our family couldn't make it without her, or at the very least, I would have needed many many months ago to become someone very different from who I have become leading towards today.

Alright, I feel as if I have let you down because I don't think this post is very telling, insightful, or meaningful. I've probably repeated myself yet again to your boredom. I am sorry for letting you down.

Privacy, VPN tunneling, and Evidence

As if I wasn't obsessive enough about privacy and anonymity, my heart palpitations based on a fear that this son-of-a-bitch will get an e-mail from Google every time I post something have caused me to fear doing anything on the web without severe encryption and VPN access through multiple countries. Especially with Google's news today that they're teaming up with the NSA, I think to myself, "well, if covering my tracks and staying private wasn't important before, it just became a priority." My wife thinks that if I'm not doing anything wrong then there's no reason to hide my tracks, but I disagree using the current accusation against me in point. This SOB took bits of information scattered around the web about me and pasted together a story and an accusation. If I didn't have proof to the contrary, and if I didn't have proof that HE KNEW to the contrary, I could have wound up in jail!

So it gives me a slight chuckle that every time now that I log onto blogger.com, it welcomes me in German, Dutch, or some other language. Tunneling through an encrypted VPN really slows down my connection, but in cases such as this one where it says, "last logged in from 124.22.23.58" (or whatever IP address), this concerns me because I *KNOW* that if I were on the other side monitoring my own connection, I could say, "Okay, Zoe logged onto his e-mail from this address, and someone from that same address (must be him) also logged onto this other user on Blogger. This frumpter account must be his [not so] anonymous account that he's using." Whatever, nobody is likely going to do this, but if I -- a semi-techy hacker-type of regular guy -- can think of how easy it is to do this AND I own both Google, Blogger, and so many other services used by my subscribers, YOU BET YOUR ASS I WOULD BE LINKING ACCOUNTS BASED ON WHICH IP ADDRESSES LOGGED ONTO THEM.

Anyway, while I should be preparing for the bar exam (and I am full force), I spent much of yesterday and today gathering evidence into one orderly place. I also filed a response to the accusation, and so we'll see what happens. I believe there is a strong likelihood that I'll have to hire an attorney eventually, but for now, my actions cooperating with the authorities are innocuous. I really didn't have anything incriminating that I had to worry about, and so I wrote out a reply and sent it in. Really, I am not at a place where we can afford a lawyer at this point, but then again, we are really at a place where we cannot afford NOT to get a lawyer should this thing move to the next level and a criminal investigation be filed. At this point, it seems as if everybody is just gathering evidence and so there was nothing to hide.

So that is the update on my main worry of the day; I'll post this and write something more personal following this.

What I value in a relationship with my wife based on a conversation about me watching "The Bachelor" on Hulu.com.

Now my thoughts about other matters. My wife chides me that I enjoy watching TV shows such as "The Bachelor", but I find the interactions between the characters quite telling of real life. There is so much to human interactions that even if everything looks good on paper, it might still not feel right. The chemistry might not be there.

I also enjoy the quite obvious theme of "what do you get when you squeeze an orange?" ANSWER: ORANGE JUICE! 'What about if you squeeze an apple?" ANSWER: APPLE JUICE! Moral of the story, when a person gets squeezed, what EVENTUALLY COMES OUT is WHAT IS INSIDE. I see these girls with such perfect-looking exteriors break down with their inner insecurities. I see honest people get caught lying and have to face the consequences of having to be asked to leave the show. And then I see hated people like Vienna who everyone dislikes be shown kindness even in the face of being accused from every side. What made me smile tonight while watching the latest episode is that I felt that she let her insecurities slip when she went to visit whoever the guy is in bed. I loved it when he felt uncomfortable and he sent her upstairs. Jake I believe is his name.

In other words, what people are can never be hidden indefinitely by a facade. Eventually the truth ALWAYS comes out. This comforts me because I feel that life would vindicate me if what is inside really came outside to be viewed by all. I don't think that I hide much. I certainly hide stuff, no doubt. But not much. At least if my insides were exposed, people would see that I have a good heart. There's not much beyond that that I have to fear. Yes, I used "that" twice in the last sentence on purpose.

Then i think about my wife. My blatantly rough and honest wife who I can trust. our relationship is nothing like what I see on TV, but we both work very hard and are just trying to make due with what has been given to us in terms of skills, blessings, and opportunities. It still phases me that I can rarely get a read on what my wife is thinking, but it occurred to me tonight that this is only because after three years of marriage, she has not yet opened up to me. She has not yet learned to lower her guard, and she has not learned to be vulnerable and open around me. Even though this is a serious violation in my values in what I expect out of a husband-wife relationship, and even though there are other serious complaints I have about our marriage such as the distance we share from each other and lack of intellectual and emotional intimacy, the one deep bond that I can rely on her for is that she is honest and she is faithful to our relationship and to our family. I suppose there is nothing more needed in a relationship than that, and all my other complaints are silenced because I wouldn't trade these traits for the others that I sometimes miss.

Anyway, again, the second watch of the evening is upon us, and thus I must force myself to give up my streaming evening thoughts and I will force myself to retire to my bed listening with headphones to my holosync audios as I fall asleep to awaken to yet another very difficult day in a stream of many difficult days, weeks, and months. Life will get better, because everything changes eventually.

False accusations, lies, and bearing false witness.

I have been trying each day and every moment not to think about what has been done to us, and while some moments I am able to distract myself, other moments just haul me right back into the feelings of hurt and violation from the objectively innocuous but malicious attack that has transpired. I will consciously not think about it again, but I will post about it after the intended posting of this article (either at the bottom or in a separate article). The injury, however, is still too fresh and so I am not sure how much I can share, and I am not being mysterious or dramatic on purpose.

Oh hell, I'll talk about it now, and let's see what comes of this.

Naturally, I am not the most politically correct person. In real life, I am rough around the edges, I speak my mind, and I am honest (apparently to my detriment here). I used to believe that if I am forthcoming, authentic, and if I have integrity, people would respect me. I've always wanted to be seen when I get older as one of those rough lumberjack-like mentalities who have a very clear and set way about me, and where every bone in my body was real and even though people may not like me, they trust me that I wouldn't deceive them.

But I find that this kind of honest person does not operate well in this world; he is at a significant disadvantage because people all around him are scheming to hurt him, to trick him, to attack him, or to nudge him to reveal the dishonesty that MUST be under his rough skin. "Every man has skeletons in his closet," people think, but mine are not the kind that people suspect.

If you saw me on the street, whether or not I thought you were likable or whether I thought you were garbage, I would still smile and give you real kindness. I'd say hello and I'd mean it. I would not share my thoughts with you about you, but if you asked, I'd tell you what I was thinking. Being a bit more broad in my description, I do stick out of a crowd as being smarter, wiser, better, possibly more virtuous than those around me. This is not my intent, but it's the reality of it and even though I NEVER BOAST about my qualities (I mean in person, not here on the blog or in my thoughts), people very often feel put off by me, and they often think that I think that I am so much better than them and it really pains me to say that too often, they are right.

Apparently, I stepped on someone's ego. Instead of shaking it off, this person went violent on me and my reputation, but he didn't stop there. He gathered tenuous evidence and made false accusations about me about things that he knew not to be true. He filed complaints with government agencies charging me with crimes I did not commit and that I have proof that I did not commit, but now the livelihood and integrity of my family is now at risk because my reputation is at risk. The kind of things he accused me of will always be with me, and if asked about, even if I am found not guilty, I will always have been accused of it.

It digs into my chest like a knife that this person did this for the sole purpose of causing me emotional harm. I think if and when he reads this blog, he will have immense satisfaction knowing that he has caused me pain. I have vomited over being accused of this, and I have felt dizzy, shaky, nauseous, and light-headed since I found out about it. I cry privately over this, because the aggravation I am feeling now that I have to hire a lawyer and defend myself right in the middle of studying for the NY bar; it is unthinkable. NY's character and fitness board has even contacted me and told me that if I am found guilty, I might not be admitted into the state. All this while I have been doing nothing except what I should be doing -- studying for the bar exam.

Here is my source of calm. I learned a long time ago from a woman who troubled me to no end but taught me more than I could ever acknowledge that everybody is dishonest, trust nobody, and document everything. I learned to keep records of everything with dates on every page of paper. My source of calm is that I keep records, and I can prove that his claims are incorrect. However, this being said, I cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his circumstantial evidence is not sufficient to have these agencies take action against me and I am lucky I do not have to. However, I have not yet been formerly charged, and thus with all these informal hearings not subject to the rules of evidence and law, I fear for my family's stability and financial well being every moment because I know that this can change our family's fate and possibly force us to leave the state.

On the note of fate, I believe with every fiber of my being that there is a G-d and that he controls everything and everyone, and thus this is happening for a reason. I think to myself that either I have made a wrong turn and he is correcting my path, albeit via this unbelievably complicated way, or that this is a divine decree against me and that I and my family are being punished for things I have done or not done. I am bitter about this, and I've always wished that Hashem would not test me and would just set me out on a calm pathway and let me live out my life with my spiritual struggles, but apparently he loves me because he has turned his attention towards me with these hardships.

One thing my accuser has not anticipated is that I don't forget. I will defend myself against his claim, and regardless of whether I win or lose, when the moment presents itself, I will hit him judicially hard and where it hurts, and I will do it with truth. I will sue him where it hurts, and if G-d is with me, he will know that dishonesty is a very dark and painful place that I pray to G-d that he wishes he never visited.

Until then, I am the injured sheep. I am the defeated, meek one going "be'eh." However, I promise that I will learn to become the viper with sharper fangs and more poison than anyone would have ever imagined.

I have so much that can be attacked with truth. I have so many secrets, so many skeletons, and so many unpopular beliefs that any attack dog can have a field day with any of my weaknesses. But to attack me with falsehood, no. I do not consent to be lunged at with a lie. I still believe the justice system is good. Please don't jade my idealistic view of things with your filthy lies, you dog. Even worse, I saw you as my friend.

It's so difficult to write about this. Someone has hurt our family, our livelihood so deeply that I do not think we will ever be able to recover from it.

I cannot even speak of what has been done to us. It is too embarrassing. I have been sick for days just thinking about it. I have been unable to focus for days. This person has harmed both me and my family. I wouldn't want the assailant to read this and feel victory. Just know, I will overcome what you have done to us, and I will do what it takes to have justice come out on the side of truth.

There is an old Chinese saying that if you are going to hurt someone, finish them off because if you don't, they'll get stronger, they'll bide their time, and when the time is right, they'll show you no mercy. I am that harmed person. You haven't killed me. I will lie in wait. I will rebuild my strength, my family, my reputation. As soon as you slip, I will be there ready to finish you off, my old friend.

Until then, it will remain a secret. I will not tell others what has been done to us, to my family, to the safety of my children. People who act with such evil always get what comes to them. I have no need to be the avenger. Justice has its own sword. But I will think of you always until I finish you off.

Be kind to each other.

I received a posting on an old blog entry that I thought I deleted, "Angry with my wife...". It is such an interesting feeling going back to old blog entries and re-reading the rage or emotion I felt over one topic or another (especially because she'll be giving birth any week now with our THIRD child), knowing that I'm about to go through the same thing all over again. The question this time around is, "will I be a jerk again and will I think her evil for the things she leans on me to do?" Or this time around, can I be a better person and a more loving husband?

Every day these past few weeks, I've had this wonderful EXCUSE of why I don't have to help, contribute, wake up in the middle of the night, take care of the kids, etc. -- that I'm spending all my time preparing for the bar exam -- and honestly, I often ask myself whether I can be better at being a good person. This is the perfect excuse because she expects so little of me (probably because she's just as afraid as I am that I might not succeed) because she wants me to focus all my energy on studying, but often enough, I'm sitting there with the books open and I see she's having a difficult time, and while sometimes I won't help because I don't want to be distracted, often to the detriment of my studies, I do help.

It's very interesting being NOT nearly close to my best, either in physical shape and form, discipline, religious observance (in terms of midot, taivas, and controlling my emotions and my habits). I am also far from being my best when it comes to being a good husband. I feel in many ways that I've left my wife out to dry, so to speak, in so many ways because I've taken on this burdensome task of studying for the bar exam, and now she feels that her parenting duties have doubled because I am no longer around. In truth, I actually think that I am just as helpful as I usually am, but the perception of the matter is that I'm not because so many evenings and mornings I am just not around when in the past I would be. I'm rambling.

I suppose what I am saying is that from taking a step back because I had to study for this exam, I've seen what a trooper my wife is. She's really wonderful, and she gives of herself way beyond her natural capabilities.

In response to "Inclusion in Art" in my posting from a little over a year ago, I no longer see my wife as manipulative or mean when she asks me to shoulder more than I already am in terms of lightening her load. She works hard and very often, she really needs a break. Case in point, she often thinks that our involvement in the parenting is off-balance; we got into a fight on Saturday morning and in anger (and exhaustion from a fight which she instigated over me using the word "taiva" in a sentence), I was drained of energy and I went back to sleep to start the day over. She didn't say anything, but from the slamming of the doors, I knew she was upset. When I woke up, a few minutes later, I saw her sneak away into the room and lay down in bed, leaving me with the kids when I would normally have gone to shul (synagogue). Instead of starting a fight, I let her sleep because I knew she needed it. When she woke up hours later, she was still upset at me and felt that it was her "turn" to take the nap and that she was justified in doing so because I took mine just a few hours earlier. However, I corrected her that I let her sleep because she looked like she needed it, turning the issue from one of right and wrong and fair and unfair to me being a good husband and her being the immature one who let the "my turn" arguments of our two-year-old rub off on her adult mindset.

In sum, husbands and wives owe a duty to be nice to each other, even when the burden one or both is shouldering is not fair. On top of that, each should go out of their way to do things for the other person just because that spouse is likely having a difficult time too. Okay, I'm not making sense and I'm sorry for giving you guys the run-on blog entry (these annoy me to no end), but in short, just be nice to each other. Seriously.

Butt kicked and then studied and kicked butt on Wills, Trusts & Estates Barbri lecture.

Almost falling asleep after a LONG two days of intensive study, I'm proud of my accomplishment.

I spent the past two days learning Wills & Trusts. The first day kicked my butt. I showed up to class after doing the readings, but the professor's style was to go over one hypothetical after another after another for HOURS, expecting us to understand rules from the results of who wins and who loses in each scenario.

This was TOTALLY against my learning style. Like the first few days of this bar review, and like my first successful bar review in Colorado, I did will sitting by my laptop and typing in and memorizing rules as the lecturer dictated them to us. This was impossible when we were trying to figure out who takes under the will, and who improperly destroyed their will, etc. This was quite frustrating.

So after class yesterday, I sat down and reviewed EACH AND EVERY HYPOTHETICAL. I extracted the rules from the result, and I wrote the rules in my word processor in a BLACK LETTER LAW "RULE" format. It took me so many hours that by the time I was not even finished studying, the evening Barbri class video started and I was still in my seat from the morning live lecture.

When I got home, I decided that I wasn't going to let this SOB law professor make us look stupid again. I went through the books, did the readings as I did last time, but this time I REVIEWED EACH AND EVERY HYPOTHETICAL and where I could (many I couldn't because there were fill-in-the-blanks, Barbri's special style of lecture learning), I extracted and wrote up the black letter rules from the hypotheticals so that when I showed up to class today, I already had the rules and I could focus on the application of the rules in the hypotheticals. Victory. I understood everything the lecturer said, and while I still think he's an a*hole for writing his notes in this fashion, I still mastered the material on my own terms.

Tomorrow is Torts, an MBE topic. I'm excited about this because the notes I have from my Colorado bar review will be more than sufficient to prepare me for the MBE portion on this exam. I've ripped out the notes from the Barbri lecture handbook and even though I have the notes already written out from last time, I'll still play their fill-in-the-blank game. However, I don't think that transcribing all those notes on my computer will be worth my time as it was for these past few Wills & Trusts lectures. The rules on the fill-in-the-blank page seem to be quite straightforward. I'll just remember to write neatly so I can review my notes later on. If I have the time, the motivation or the energy, maybe I'll write them.

On another note, on my downtime I've been playing a really wacky and yet fun game, WORLD OF GOO. A demo is downloadable on their web site, and it's certainly worth the money. I'm having a wonderful time with it; I played it late last night before I went to sleep, and just like the goo-based structures you build in the game wobble, my eyes were wobbling when I went to sleep (and thus the room appeared to be wobbling), an interesting effect of the game. Funny enough, I experienced the wobbling randomly today after thinking about the game during the bar review today. I thought that was a strange recall kind of experience.

On a final note, some time ago, I purchased Centerpointe's Holosync Awakening course and Monroe Institute's Hemisync course which I now have backed up on a .flac format which my wife's Samsung YP-S3 music player doesn't play. So I bought myself today a SanDisk Sansa Clip+ 8GB MP3 Player which can play my .flac files so that I can listen to them with headphones on my mp3 player and maybe I can fall asleep with them over my ears and get some sleep programming. I used to do that with my iPod mini mp3 player with Rockbox firmware installed, but I dropped that over a year ago and I haven't been able to listen to my files since. (I'd listen to it on my laptop, but the last thing I need is to fall asleep while listening to the audios and to roll over and crack my laptop's LCD screen. So I'm very excited that I'll be able to get back into listening to holosync and hemisync CDs.

Feelings, probably stuff I shouldn't post.

This is the second blog entry following the one immediately below this one. It's a personal accounting about how I'm feeling in life and what I'm experiencing under my hood, so to speak.

Generally, I'm feeling okay with who I've become. Obviously I could be a better person, a more religious person, and more kind or helpful person, but I'm generally a good religious guy. I wish I respected G-d more, because I am such of follower of His path, but once in a while, I'll have a "screw you, punish me if you want to, but I'm doing X" mentality. To my relief, my acts of defiance are usually something like "I'm not going to daven today," or "I'm not helping this person even though I could."

I often have a "let him rot" mentality because I feel that people don't do good when they could, and so why should I. [That's not a statement of whether I believe I should act or not; it's a reality of how I might act if the situation comes up (which it usually does not.)] I also can't get over why I am always so angry at the world. I try to keep a cheerful composure, but usually, I'm saying "f*** you, a**hole" to the person across from me in my mind.

It drives me nuts how I feel that I am superior to everyone else because I objectively know that I'm not except I don't believe that for a second. I feel that I've taken so much time in my life learning about how people function, learning about psychology, learning how to read a person's facial expressions, behaviors, and learning about efficiency practices such as reading ultra fast and listening to countless audio programs about how one can manage their state AND practicing everything I learn until it becomes unconscious that I have developed a belief that everyone living has a duty to live at their best or else they are wasting the minutes of their life and they don't deserve my respect. Caveat - many people have my respect, my love, and my friendship unconditionally, and I respect everyone's right to live their life however they want -- I just have a tendency to look at people and to think that they are stupid or shallow and thus I want nothing to do with them.

So many people take offense at the above paragraph, but I think "sc**w you," these are my thoughts and you're a moron anyway. No wonder why I don't get along with people.

In the law world, I'm sitting amongst these puny wannabe lawyers who spout law and use complex legal terms and try to educate everyone around them with their brilliance that it makes me sick. If I were a violent man I would want to strangle them, but really what I do is I try not to listen and if I can't focus, I walk away from them laughing to myself at the nasty lawyer world of unemployment, deceit, and unethical people they are about to meet.

Anyway, I have full belief that I'll do what it takes to ace this exam, and I'll rejoin the horrible lawyer world looking for a job or whatever as soon as this exam is over.

Bar review, day two.

Bar review, day two. There is a girl sitting across from me that looks in a spooky way like my torts professor from when I was in law school. Believing that people's looks and features have an innate effect on their personality, inclinations, and tendencies, I wonder if this girl knows that she has the capability of being a tough but good torts teacher.

Emotionally, I'm exhausted after today's class and yet I'm a bit excited. The review was quite intense and I was surprised that we were expected to do as much writing as we were. Barbri is notoriously known for their "fill in the blank" workbook, but my experience of this is that it's "write like mad until your hands fall out." I'm glad I had my laptop with me.

I suppose my plan of attack will be to pre-write the hierarchy of the outline in the workbook, and fill in the notes as the lecturer speaks. If there is content that is noteworthy, I'll add it in after the class.

One thing I learned from my first bar review (where I passed the bar) is after class to re-write notes in a format that I can memorize, and to use full sentences in my rules. Also, if I can, make mnemonics for items that need to be memorized or steps that will need to be followed on an exam. I'll be doing this with these notes.

Today's debt collection class was brand new to me, but the jist of it is if you misrepresent or do something against the statute, you'll get busted with a bunch of laws. Obviously this is too general for use on an exam, but here the devil is in the forest and not the trees. The detailed rules are just knowing the general rules of one set of laws, and knowing the distinctions between the local state rules and the federal rules. Not such a big endeavour.

I'll write about my feelings in just a moment in the next blog entry.

I should be more flexible. First day of bar review and I already had a fight.

Today was my first day studying substantive law for the NY bar exam. Today we went over how to write an essay which I found to be quite helpful, since I've forgotten this skill from my law school days.

I tried writing in the Barbri workbook as they suggested, but when it came to writing more than a few words, I couldn't keep up and I kept missing things the lecturer said. This was frustrating and so I booted up my computer and started typing notes on my laptop (and taking only general notes in the notebook). I figured that since I'll be typing the exam, it's not that big of a deal that I can't write quickly.

I took around 30 minutes after class to get a head start on tomorrow's subject, Federal Debt Collection and Unfair Competition. I started on the summary notes thinking that in the afternoon I would read the actual NY workbook which contains all the detailed notes. On the way home, I conservatively estimated that I'll require 5-6 hours each day after class to study. I spoke with my wife about it, and she agreed that it sounds like a good plan.

My wife was kind enough to have lunch ready for me when I got home. I did some socializing and playing with the kids, and then I got to work. I was going to go to Starbucks to study, but my wife wanted the car so instead I stayed at home and she went out with the kids and some friends.

When she came home after four hours instead of six like she agreed, I was really upset. I was so upset that I felt that she was playing games -- and on the FIRST DAY of the bar review, no less! I thought of words like selfish, etc., but I kept my thoughts to myself. However, seeing that I was upset, she got defensive which really set me off. Still trying to keep my cool, I told her I was going to study elsewhere, and I left. Her interruption cost me around 1.5 hours in study time which I felt was unfair. I drove to the nearest location to study, around 25 minutes away from our apartment. To this minute including the 25 minutes I'll need to drive home, this interception will have cost me 1.5 hours today, time that I could have used in a better way, such as helping my wife with the kids, etc.

I finished my studying and it is 8pm, slightly after our childrens' bedtime. I feel a bit bad that I wasn't there to help her out with it, but I am still upset that she ruined our agreed-upon schedule and cost me so much wasted time and so I don't feel that bad about having her put the kids to bed. I totally know that I overreacted, but I am still feeling like she thinks my studying is a joke and she doesn't respect the importance of an hour or two when there are so few hours available to study during the day. I really want to do the minimum to do this right, and I am upset that I was thrown off schedule on the first real day of studying.

In sum, I don't know whether I am more hurt that what I am doing is not being taken seriously, or whether I feel that I was egged on when I was visibly upset after being wronged. I really don't think it is a big deal, but it was enough to upset me.

I guess I got scared that the speaker asked, "How many of you have spouses?" "How many of you want to keep your spouses by the end of bar review?" That question bothered me because I'm really doing this for us and I wish I felt that my wife was on my team rather than opposing me all the time.

Dislike the idea of taking a low-paying "stable" job rather than starting my own law practice.

I just finished taking a practice MBE bar exam (well, the morning session), and I have a few minutes, so I figured that I would record my thoughts. B"H as things stand right now, if I took the bar exam today, (at least for the MBE portion of the exam), I would pass. This is quite a relief, especially since the substantive portion of the bar review hasn't even begun. So I'm in a good place right now. Now to learn state-specific law these next few weeks.

I was talking to my wife last night about areas of law I would like to focus in with regard to my practice, and I was telling her that I felt threatened that people are now trying to put me in touch with people who would possibly be willing to throw me a job. While that's all great, I'm not so excited to find someone here in NY who would give me a $50K/yr attorney job when I know in my heart of hearts that I could make at least that working my own practice with one hand tied behind my back. My wife says that there are priorities and that I have a responsibility to put food on the table and to support our family, and if I get an offer for $50K or $60K, I should jump on it because even though it wouldn't make us rich, we would get by.

I seem to completely differ, and I believe that once I'm licensed in this state, I can jump into getting started in a law practice and I can do whatever it takes to make this work. ...and even if I failed, there are likely going to be document review positions and projects that come and go over the year so I am relatively certain that we wouldn't starve. She just believes that security trumps being a visionary, and I feel that being a realist AND a visionary is the responsible way to provide long term for my family.

$50K doesn't sound so good when our rent is $1000/month, electricity and gas is ~$300/month, school loans hover around $450-600/month, and that's before we even consider taxes on that income (NY seems to be disgusting regarding income taxes), and the daily living expenses such as food, health insurance (~$550/month), diapers, formula, etc. I just can't see how we can even think of settling for this kind of lifestyle when there is something better just waiting for me to grasp for it.

How I've been feeling -- really -- lately.

Alright, more personal stuff. I'm davening these days, and I'm learning Chitas and Rambam each day. I'm happy with where I am, but I never expected to be HERE.

When I came to NY, I thought I was going to go back to school full time, live on federal loans, and that I would be working to get that much needed engineering degree (electrical engineering seemed to be my path of choice because it provided the best opportunities for patent attorneys). I never expected not to be in school, and I never expected to be taking the NY bar exam! This seemed to be the farthest thing from my mind, especially since I thought I'd be hiring by a law firm but this never happened. I suppose I didn't try enough when I got here, but I did pound my social network and none of the leads panned out. Even my Crown Heights yeshiva buddies and rabbis weren't helpful. I was disappointed by this, but I suppose that I have decided to start my own practice to spite them all and to show everyone including myself that I can do this.

I feel in a way that I am sticking a finger up at the law firm world and saying F.U. to those that thought I would fail. I am genuinely filled with anger at how things turned out, but I have no doubt that I'll pass this bar exam. I also will go against my inclination and will apply to law firms again once this bar review is finished. I will also apply in the summer as well, and will network with people should it be G-d's plan for me to work in a firm. All this being said, I'm going my own route and starting my own practice.

As for being a husband and a father, I think I'm doing an okay job. My kids are torah-oriented (my son doesn't like watching Rebbe videos but he loves saying pesukim), and we're doing a good job with chinuch. My wife works her butt off caring for the kids, and I feel bad for everything she is forced to do because of the choices we have made. That being said, to my surprise, she's taking a class to start the process of going back to school to specialize, and while I support her, I'd rather we work as a team on our family and our livelihood because I see her getting yet another degree when she's not using the two she already has as a waste of time and a threat to the integrity of our family. I really hopes she follows through with this and gets a job and is happy, but I don't think this is what she really wants, and she gets angry at me when I ask any questions about whether she has done enough due diligence in making an educated decision as to whether to go down this path or not. I know she has seen the bad news, that those in her field are unemployed, but I feel like she ignores this bad news and thinks things will be different for her, just as I thought law would be different for me when I entered law school after 2002. I just hope she knows what she is doing, and I'm trusting G-d to direct us in the right direction to open doors and shut doors as appropriate.

On another note, I keep asking myself, "is this all life is?" "Will I be doing this for the rest of my life? Making adjustments, changing plans, dealing with the mundane?" Where's the excitement in all this? Where is the fantasy? Where is the meaning and the euphoria?!? My life, even with all of its activity is boring and it often feels like it is a meaningless waste. I wish I knew what I was supposed to be doing, and I wish what I was supposed to be doing was energizing, meaningful, and fun. So far, I feel BLAH about everything. I'd love to break out of my shell, but I don't know where the boundaries are. I don't know what the goals are. Everything feels so wishy washy, as if G-d will direct me in the right direction, but I hate having blindfolds on.

My energy has also been quite low lately. I don't have motivation to do things like shower, cook, eat, exercise, clean, or take proactive steps in the planning of my life experience (even though I do each of these every day to some degree). I'm just going with the flow and doing what I need to do to get through this next hurdle, the bar exam, and becoming a father of soon-to-be three. I wish I had a bit more life and excitement in me.

Dealing with a nasty goy at a document review project.

I've found it quite difficult to separate who is Zoe Strickman and who is the underlying author. Who should blog about what? Who should take a stand against certain issues, and who should stand silent letting his avatar speak out to the world.

I'm content with the way things are going. My few months of absence was because I was on a document review in NYC, and I couldn't really speak about things and people while they were happening. The project paid $35/hr which was good for me and my family despite the many hours I had to work to benefit the most from the project. I worked crazy hours -- I was on the subway each morning at 6:30am, and I didn't arrive home most evenings until 8:30pm. My wife was happy about the money coming in, but my main focus was to pay back the credit card bills that mounted up since our move just a few months ago.

To be quite frank, the merger due diligence project had too many attorneys and we were bunched up in a room that was too small for what we were doing. I was shoulder-to-shoulder day and night with people I would rather have had nothing to do with. One was a career document reviewer -- an old man who worried about everything under the sun. I usually don't mind disturbed people, but this one really bugged me and got under my skin because he compensated for his weaknesses by complaining to our managers about other people.

Generally, I worked quite fast and diligent. I hyperfocused for around an hour or so, and then I took a ten minute break to clear my mind, and then I went back to focused work for another hour or so. During my breaks, I usually opened up a browser, read the news -- anything to not think of the documents that were tiring my eyes and exhausting my brain. During mandatory lunch breaks, I usually didn't go out. I ate my lunch in front of the computer and surfed the web -- we weren't allowed to bill that time so nobody cared. However, this old SOB kept looking over my shoulder and yelling at me that it is unethical to browse the web on work time, even when I was on my lunch break. He took breaks too, just different kinds of breaks -- he walked around, took long bathroom breaks, took long lunch breaks, checked his Blackberry every few minutes, and made phone calls. When he wasn't doing that, he was slowly clicking away at the screen taking multiple minutes for each page he was reviewing. He didn't seem to care whether a document was a non-relevant document which we were supposed to code and move on, or whether the document was source code for a piece of software which we were supposed to mark as such and move on -- he sat there and read each page as if he was reading a newspaper. In the same time I reviewed 100 documents, he reviewed maybe 20, and he had the NERVE to complain to the manager that I was spending too much time browsing. Then when the manager didn't do anything, he yelled at me that he was going to call the disciplinary board and have me disbarred before I'm even admitted. I told him to go ahead.

We kept statistics of our work, and our quality control reviewers every so often asked us questions and made comments about our work. I had a miscatagorization here and there -- this is normal -- but the QC reviewers said my work was highly accurate and my pace was very impressive. That didn't stop this a*hole from bothering me each day though.

Every day I dreaded showing up to work because this guy would play the martyr, saying how he couldn't ethically see how I justified the work I did, and how I was stealing from the company. I was so upset that at one point, I told him to shut the hell up and mind his own business. He felt that as an attorney, he had the duty to also mind mine too. Occasionally when I would speak to the managers of the project, they acknowledged that he was complaining about me, but they told me not to worry, and that I was doing good work. That didn't stop me from being bothered. This guy made me so mad I had a difficult time keeping a smile on my face during the day. I was so twisted up inside and angry that there were many times I just couldn't think and I was sure this anger wasn't good for my health. I was joking around with my wife this morning that I was sure he took around a month or so off of my life, and I hoped that the review and the money was worth it.

What got me angered is that other attorneys came and left the project, many of whom sat near us and did personal work most of the day. But did he say anything to them about their personal browsing habits? NO! They clicked away watching YouTube videos (and in one case one girl was watching a movie on her iPod in front of everyone with headphones), and he said nothing! It was only me that this piece of garbage kept hammering away at with his nasty comments. I dare not say it had anything to do with me being Jewish, but believe me, the thought crossed my mind.

Anyway, THANK G-D the project ended just a week ago. I started Barbri this week in the city. I still take the train every morning, but I must say that it is a relief that I hope to never see this a*hole again. He made the environment so tense, so stressful, and so unpleasant that I thought many times of just quitting and finding another position.

Question: Would test tube grown meat from a kosher animal be considered kosher for consumption?

My friend asked me about the "Scientists Grow Pork Meat in a Lab, Annoying PETA People To Disappear Soon" article about how scientists have grown pork in a test tube, and whether growing meat from an otherwise kosher animal would render the meat treif or kosher.

I saw this and I was thinking the same thing... It's a very interesting kashrut question. I was asking myself whether it would even be considered meat...

Without ANY certainty, my best guess is that rabbis would have to look at the underlying animal to determine whether it was kosher or not and make their determination from there, no? If they're growing the meat from the DNA or the cells of a pig, it would be treif. If they're growing the meat from a cow, a giraffe, or any other kosher animal, as you said, now THERE'S the question -- can we eat meat that hasn't been slaughtered properly because there has been no need for slaughter!

Assuming they can monitor to certify that all the ingredients, ovens, and utensils used in the preparation of the meat from the kosher animal were also kosher, my best guess is that the cow would be just as kosher as, say, kosher pretzels.

My best guess would be yes it would probably be kosher. It would be really COOL to hear the arguments if this sort of thing ended up being the norm on how meat is prepared.

-Zoe

PS - From the conspiratorial point of view, do you think the big agribusiness companies would ALLOW the demise of their operations? "Growing meat" would absolutely kill their CORN and SOY business, as most of the corn goes to feed the livestock to produce the meat. Then, with the live animal farming becoming extinct (as it certainly would if farms growing meat rather than live animals), what would happen to the underlying animals who formerly were thrown into cages and slaughtered? Would they now be free to roam and to eat grass? I'm guessing that the organic market for live animals would then also prosper, although the meat would be comparatively significantly more expensive than the test-tube meat that they can produce en mass.