I am the Captain of My Soul

The exam is over!  I was filled with adrenalin and so over exhausted that I could not sleep.  Instead, I watched Eastwood's film, "Invictus," which centers around Mandela and rugby.  Mandela inspired the Captain of the Springbok team to inspire his team to championship.  I did not realize that the movie was named after the Victorian poem, "Invictus," nor did I know that the poem, itself, had inspired Mandela, and his fellow inmates on Robben Island, to withstand life within prison walls.

Essay Books and The Recorder's Model Answers at my favorite Law Library

Having been to Robben Island and toured South Africa, the movie had even more meaning for me and it put my own life, and the challenges of the California Bar exam into better perspective.  A "prisoner" to my studies since mid-March 2010, I have been released to normal life, and can resume long walks at my favorite parks in California until I leave this beautiful state to begin life anew.

On this long path towards the July 2010 bar exam, I have also met and become friends with a man whom I shall always remember and who affects me deeply, who affects my soul.  I traveled to South Africa to see another man who affected me similarly; a man of great intellect, sensitivity and compassion for others who died unexpectedly at a young age of heart failure.  A published author, I learned about his death nearly one year later, when I discovered that he was described as the "late" author.

My life has been hanging in the balance for two years, and I have sacrificed much to become an attorney.  I am in good company, for it takes intelligence, guts, determination and incredible perseverance to become a lawyer.  And, it seems, every few years, California raises the bar, making the exam more extensive in the 17 subjects tested, the necessary MPRE scores higher, without factoring in the sheer physical, mental and emotional stamina required just to sit for the exam.  One's back and seat becomes numbed by pain by extended sitting for three days on unforgiving chairs.  One's stomach must be conditioned to lack of sustenance for hours at a time.  And, even water is disallowed unless we sip it supervised by the examination watch dogs.  Indeed, it seems to be cruel and unusual punishment.  Have the examiners themselves subjected themselves to such conditions?

Mandela, himself, was an attorney.  He used his skills of logic and persuasion to lead a country.  And, if I pass the bar exam and am admitted to practice law, I shall be proud to follow his tradition in my own simple way.  I shall never be a Mandela, but I would be happy to be a great advocate for my clients and to use the law to secure a sense of justice for them.

I close with "Invictus" written by Walter Henley and featured in the film. . .

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.