Thanks All Around

OH, MY GOD, I MADE IT!!!

Passing the 2004 bar is easily my greatest personal triumph ever. Graduating cum laude from college and making it into UP Law suddenly seem strangely trivial in perspective. Even though I know I worked hard for the former and really got down on my knees and prayed for the latter, passing the bar results involved an intensive combination of both hard work and incessant prayer, so it just feels that much more significant.

Although thanks are certainly in order, I don't really feel like reading off an Oscar-style laundry list of people to thank, so much as give a little discourse on how very specific people played very specific roles in this brilliant achievement.

I want to thank my former officemates at Tan and Venturanza Law Offices, as well as the partners who at the time of my debacle were highly supportive of my efforts to conquer the bar once and for all. From the books some of them recommended I read to the techniques, to the scheduling, they really helped me find my way.

I am also extremely grateful for my former blockmates who dropped in on me during either the first or second weekend with some heartwarming words of encouragement. I may not have graduated with you guys (or taken my oath with you) but I love you all just the same!

Two of my close relatives, my first cousins to be exact, let me stand on their shoulders for the entire duration of my second review: my cousins Laurence and Bopeep Arroyo, who in addition to the financial support they gave without hesitation, never hesitated to offer words of encouragement, during the review and the bar, and who shared in my jubilation at my moment of triumph.

Another group whose help I could not possibly have done without my lovely wife's similarly lovely bevy of "sisters," the UP Portia sorority. For two years---two years!---they threw their support behind me, doing much the rather crucial legwork needed to get me accommodations, to ensure my application, and to make sure that, on the night before each pair of exams I had all the tips and reviewers I needed.

Penultimately, I'd like to thank Tito/Dr. Tony Guerrero, my Tita Sonia's husband and my voice of reason. It was his shock therapy/pep talk that got me off my self-pitying butt and back in the game. Passing the bar, in retrospect, is at least 50 percent attitude, and without a doubt Tito Tony's help infused me with exactly the attitude I needed to sit down and just freaking STUDY, and then to TAKE the exam and PASS it.

Finally, there are not enough words in the dictionary to describe what my loving wife, Theia, was for me in what was easily the most trying year of my life. My lover, my dearest friend, my foil, my son's nanny, my just-about-everything-you-can-think-of. Two years in a row she sacrificed her own bar bid to let me take my shot, and it was one of the bigger sacrifices she ever had to make. She took care of me in a way that I know I could never hope to duplicate as we now begin preparations for her bar exam. I will certainly try to be for her at the very least a fraction of the bastion of support that she was (and still is) for me.

Of course, thanks go out to all the well-wishers, my parents and other relatives who prayed and offered moral support, but to my mind these people really stand out in my mind and heart.

Thank you all, and God bless.