The Hurricane That Didn't Hit

The past two weeks have been interesting, to say the least.

I was supposed to take the LSAT remotely on August 11th. I had afforded myself the luxury of a full year of studying since the last time I took it, and I finally felt as ready as I thought I could be. I had broken through several studying plateaus over the past months, and my practice test scores had been consistently climbing.

Unfortunately, the Law School Admissions Council had switched remote proctoring services since I took the exam last year, and this new one was, to put it mildly, a SHITSHOW. I sat in front of my laptop, camera on, for two hours waiting for my proctor. I called three different helplines a total of fourteen times and waited on hold for more than an hour. Finally, I filed a complaint with LSAC and gave up on the prospect of taking my test that day.

Apparently, this happened to almost everyone who tried to take the exam remotely on that Friday. A few days later, we received notice that we'd be offered make-up time slots for the next week. Once signups came out, I saw my choices were to take the remote exam again or to drive 85+ miles to San Bernadino or LA county to take it in person. I resigned myself to another horrendous remote proctoring experience.

By some stroke of luck, it worked out for me the second time. Despite the fact that Southern California was hit by a tropical storm for the first time since 1939 on the day I was set to retake the exam, my power stayed on and I didn't face any proctoring troubles. An unexpected triumph after a nightmarishly Kafkaesque set of circumstances. 

In other words, I was completely over it by the time I was sitting for the real exam. I'd gotten three hours of sleep the night before (lifelong insomniac), and I had pretty much emotionally extracted myself from the whole situation because I couldn't bear to feel the disappointment I had on August 11th. 

I'll get my score back on August 30th, and August 31st is the deadline to sign up for the October test if I'm unhappy with my score. Until then, I'm a freely moving rat, as my friends and I like to joke (a Morris water maze moment, for all you psych majors.)

Other than that, summer tourist season is slowly winding down and high school kids are going back to school, so the beaches around here are a little more peaceful. I was worried the storm would erode the bluffs past the point of no return, but we weren't too badly affected. Ironically, even though it had started as a hurricane, the storm hit harder in inland areas than along the coast.

I've been noticing a lot of new and interesting birds at the beach, one of which a cursory Google search has led me to believe is the long-billed curlew. Its beak quite literally looks like a syringe, which I find amusing. The other main bird I've been seeing is, I'm pretty sure, a black pelican (I'm less confident about this classification than the curlew.) The first time I saw these stately birds flying in a V formation, I thought they were geese because of their size. Their beaks are a bit stout, so maybe they aren't pelicans---if anyone knows birds well, I'd like your two cents. 

I also got within an arm's reach of an egret once earlier in the summer; we were both standing in the shallow water sizing each other up and enjoying our respective afternoons. I haven't seen any egrets since.

Waiting for my LSAT score feels like the week in between Christmas and New Years, except humid. I miss Boston very much, but I'm alright without the prolonged East Coast humid months.

With teeth, love, and pelicans(?),

Anika