bar exam recovery mode

what a whirlwind this past week has been.

i'm still in massive recovery mode.

i started having panic attacks the 36 hours or so before day 1 of the bar exam. i was fuh-reaking! i totally didn't feel ready and i wasn't remembering crap at all and my innards were a sloshing, queasy mess. i sat around with my outlines and muttered a lot in those last hours, and even when i was roaming around doing household chores or the laundry, i continued to mutter to myself like a crazy schizo bag lady.

if i pass, it will be because of this thing, my savior:

this book is what i turned to during the last two-and-a-half weeks before the bar. i pushed the flash cards aside, i threw my self-generated and bar/bri outlines out the window, and this book became my sole companion. it is absolutely amazing. it costs about $ 65 and was written by one of the bar exam lecturers of my bar review course.

the thing is, this book was written mostly for the california bar exam, but i still think it would be an excellent source for any other state bar exam as well. the california distinctions are made clear in the book, and at the very least, you get an idea of how to format each of your essays for each of the 14 subjects you may encounter on the exam. i did my best to follow the format of the book to the letter.

so DUDE. how about that bar exam, huh?

i've been burned before -- so that's why i'm not going to even offer predictions as to how i did, how i think i did, whether the exam was hard or whether it was easy.

i'll only say that i am so very completely, unequivocally drained.

what an intense few days.

i started thinking, right after day 1 was finished, "this is it?!"

really, you work your ass off and study your heart out for a good long period of time -- and i totally went all out this time -- but all that time and energy you invest can easily become a cloud of dust and mean jack shit the day the results come out and you find out you're not on the pass list.

if anything, what i took out of the experience of this past week was this:

this can be done.

the exam is so do-able. and that's easy to forget after you've failed and during the long time you spend waiting around and studying for the next exam. but seriously, the exam questions are straight-forward. the challenges for us, as examinees, is just to budget time and present a coherent, organized answer.

but it can be done. that's the important thing i have to remember, especially if i fail again. that's how i felt after emerging from each session: it is within my power to pass. all those statistical break-downs of who passes and who doesn't pass really doesn't mean jack or have any bearing on my ability to conquer the bar exam.

anyhow, i was really surprised that we got two professional responsibility questions. two!

not that i'm complaining. i guess.

here are the subjects we got tested on:

day 1:

• torts
• professional responsibility
• criminal law & criminal procedure

day 3:

• wills & trusts
• community property (no moore calculations! yay! *wild, raucous cheering*)
  
• corporations/business organizations & professional responsibility
  

i nearly got screwed on day 3.

i hadn't paid attention to the precise time that the exam began. so about an hour into it, i stopped the proctor to ask in a whisper what time the exam had started. "about 8:50," she whispered back.

turns out the exam had actually started at 8:40. and i didn't find this out until the last hour was called. and i freaked and began hauling ass because i was still not even close to being done with the CP question. ugh! i tell you, that 10 minutes makes an absolute difference. i finally got to the corporations/prof. resp. question when there was about 45 minutes left in the exam, and so i didn't get to fully address the second part of the question that asked about the prof. resp. issues. i did raise 3 prof. resp. issues, and i didn't get to do the 2nd or 3rd issues any justice. . . .

damn you, proctor!!

but i guess i can't fault her too much. i should've paid attention. i knew i was spending too much time on that first question! plus she's new to proctoring.

but still! i got screwed out of 10 minutes!

day 2 was hard. those were the most fucked up multiple-choice questions i've ever seen! is it just me??

there were so many questions in which i could barely eliminate even one answer choice. like, wtf?!

the morning session was hardest. at the lunch-break, i had to really fight against feeling disheartened. but the afternoon session was fine. i think i was able to answer at least the first 10 questions pretty confidently.

but seriously, i'll be surprised if i end up breaking 100 on the damned mbes. they were hard. i did about 950 practice mbe questions in total to prepare, and i don't think that did me any good. my bar review class used questions from reed's bar prep -- and the difficulty level in reed's practice questions, compared with the actual mbe questions on the bar -- well, there really is no comparison whatsoever.

one thing i noticed during the bar is that there are two breeds of people: those who love talking about their answers right after we finish a session and those who don't. i'm of the second category; i don't want to hear or talk about a thing! but the ones in the first category far outweigh those in the second.

so i'm really glad that i didn't know anyone at the bar exam. i would hate having to hear about the exam and talking about it because that would really just freak me out even more. instead, i made sure to put in my ear buds as soon as we were released after each session and start blasting music, 'cause really, people began chattering excitedly about everything. "what did you write for the second question?" "oh, my god -- i think i bombed it!" "i didn't think they'd give us professional responsibility twice!" "so that question was obviously about attractive nuisance, huh?!"

like, shut the hell up!!

and okay, it is not completely true that i didn't know anyone there. i did recognize a couple of guys from the july bar exam. plus, i saw a couple of girls i went to high school with -- yes, high school!

at first, i was relieved to see that they didn't recognize me. one is an indian girl who, i'm pretty sure, rode my bus. the other one was this one cheerleader who was pretty popular. she has brown hair, light eyes, and was really skinny in high school. i think i'd even call her pretty.

i didn't like her then. and i don't like her now -- i see the same pompous air about her that she had back then.

so i took great pleasure in the fact that she's packed on the pounds over the years -- and from the back she has an unmistakable pear shape. like, she's really let herself go!

*evil cackle*

okay, so i'm petty. but really, i need to get my kicks any way i can! i'm poor, i'm unemployed, and i'm a bitter azngrrl. if i want to be judgmental and cackle smugly at other people's imperfections, by george, let me! i get so little pleasure out of anything else lately!

;)

but even though they didn't recognize me at first, they did start giving me curious looks by days 2 and 3. i do look a bit more different than i did in high school, i.e., not a nerdy mess. :-D so it's understandable if they weren't really sure whether they knew me or not.

as for the mpts. . . . all i can say is that there was a lot of crap going on in those mpts. those are the kinds of questions that you just can't fully answer within three hours. i thought day 1's mpt was a little more straight-forward and less messy to deal with. that one was a statute of limitations question and so there were a lot of dates being thrown around. the second mpt was regarding a preliminary injunction. there are four elements to obtaining a PI, and there were only two cases that were provided -- but damn me, if there weren't so many sub-elements to deal with! i almost got confused. but the key with these mpts is just organization. first, read the assignment/call of the question and find out what exactly what your assignment is going to be. letter? memo? persuasive arguments or objective analysis?

and then what i tend to do next just depends on what the call of the question is. but lately, what i like to do is, after reading the assignment, i go straight to the Library and look at the applicable laws that will govern my answer, then read through the cases to get the holdings. i swear, it makes it that much easier to answer an mpt if you just pass through all the facts contained in the File. you can get really swamped with all the bullshit facts that are thrown into the File and easily lose track of what the question wants you to answer. so sometimes, not always, it's just easier to go straight to the law, get what you need, then review the facts to pull out random crap to support your arguments. i used this method when doing the PI mpt. but i didn't use it when doing the statute of limitations one. either way, i was able to start taking notes quickly and not use up the 90 minutes that are recommended for doing essay organization. . . .

anyhow . . . . and that's that. :-P

i'm still whupped today. i tried to go to bed early after getting home yesterday, but then i got a call from a friend of mine: "hey, congratulations! wanna get a beer?" so i did. got home at midnight, tired as hell. went to bed. then at 1 a.m. began freaking out because i remembered that although i had uploaded my essays through examsoft earlier in the evening, i hadn't received an e-mail confirmation from them. i checked my examsoft account online to verify that they did get uploaded, and everything does seem hunky-dory. but i still haven't received my e-mail confirmations as to day 3's essays. so i still can't help but be worried. . . .

still, if i get any shit about it, i at least printed out my download/upload history from examsoft and will be able to prove that i did send everything in.

i finally went to bed at around 2:30 a.m. and slept on and off for . . . a good, long period of time. :)

now, it's time for me to worry about jobs. just last week, i wasn't too concerned about the possibility that i won't be able to pay my bills anymore. but today i started freaking out a little (if it's not one thing, it's another, huh? :-P). i may have to start lowering my standards and start considering jobs that i would rather not consider under normal circumstances . . . . and i also need to start looking out of state, too. . . .

lordy.

this is supposed to be my good luck year, too!! "good luck" my butt!

in any case, i guess i ought to just give myself the weekend to relax, unwind, and not think about that shit. i can start worrying about that and planning my life for the remainder of the year starting monday . . . . and i plan to hit the gym monday too. i'm a lard ass! i have a gut. i look like i'm well into my first trimester of pregnancy. this weight's gotta come off!!

i guess there's plenty of time left for me to make sure this year remains my good luck year.

in the meantime, i just wanna say congratulations to all my blogger bar buddies!! you got through the bar exam! we gave it our all, and now we just gotta play the waiting game. i've got confidence in you guys!! here's hoping everything goes our way this year!