Life threw me a curve, but I still got there. Called.

Sometimes we have a set plan in mind, but then something unexpected happens and we feel like it’s going to knock us off course, we’re going to be delayed in achieving our goals, and we’re not going to get there on time.

A friend from law school and I had a plan: we were both going to write at least one of the two Ontario bar exams in June 2018. We made plans to meet at Osgoode Hall to pick up our materials on the first day of the cycle in April.

However, as any Torontonian can attest, the weather in April is rather unpredictable. I had just had a lovely weekend, when an ice storm hit southern Ontario. I was getting into my car, when smack! The back of my head hit the outer shell of my car door frame. It hurt, but I didn’t lose consciousness. I drove home, and although I felt a bit off, I figured the feeling would subside soon enough. It got worse two days later. My mom, who wasn’t very familiar with concussions, came into my room on the fourth day trying to wake me up. She took me to the hospital when I told her my head wasn’t feeling well. The doctor examined me and told me there was no need for a CAT scan, because I was not externally bleeding. She gave my mother and me a brochure and some information on concussion treatments. I still thought that the next week I should take a bus downtown to Osgoode and pick up the new bar exam materials. When I told my mother my plan of going downtown, picking up my materials, and then going to study at the library with a friend, she thought I was crazy. I was stubborn. I said maybe I would feel good enough in a week to get back into studying. I was wrong about being in a good enough condition to do everything I had planned. I still picked up my materials that week though, with my mom helping me lift and pack them into my roller luggage.

My symptoms gradually got worse. I saw a neurologist who told me that it could take four weeks to really start feeling better. I hated that idea, thinking about the time ticking away before the June solicitor exam I was going to write first. It was week five when I really made strides in recovering, after weeks of being bedridden in the dark. I am sure anyone who has had a concussion before can relate to the awfulness of having to do nothing for so long. Starting to read my bar material slowly in week six, I came to terms with the fact that I wasn’t capable of studying at the pace required to be prepared for the exam. I also didn’t want to risk the feeling of failure. I hated that I wasn’t going to be able to write at least one of the bar exams in June. I knew I was going to complete the Ryerson Law Practice Program (LPP) come August, and I was afraid that it might be too intense for me to adequately study for a bar exam during the four-month training component. I thought that because of my concussion and inability to recover more quickly, that I wasn’t going to get called to the bar by June 2019 as I had planned.

I tried studying and creating notes in the summer anyways, trying to cover as much as I could before the LPP started in November. I signed up for tutoring lessons with a friend for the solicitor exam just before the LPP started. The LPP was intense. It involved getting up early and staying up late. The LPP made it impossible to have bar tutor sessions in the day except on weekends, so after my mandatory 8:30-6pm LPP days, I would have 6:15-9:15pm tutor sessions twice a week along with a session on Saturdays. I somehow pulled through and wrote the November solicitor bar exam. My result was an early Christmas gift.

I studied through the Christmas holiday season, and once I started my work placement I tried to take material to study on train rides commuting into and out of the city from the suburbs. I was lucky to have a principal who let me take off almost a week for the Ontario Barrister exam as well.

I was nervous about both exams, but I somehow passed. I was going to get called to the Ontario Bar in June 2019.

I wanted to write the first exam sooner, just in case I wasn’t going to make it or in case I couldn’t prepare properly if I wrote it later. People also told me that I should try to avoid doing the bar exams while working or doing the LPP, but I actually did it. My study plan didn’t go how I wanted it to, as I felt like I had to adapt with less time to study, but I got through it. Sometimes we can still achieve our goals, even if we have to approach them differently.