running the endless race

i can't wait for summer to start. i want to have some fun and go on an adventure!

and obviously, the start of summer for me won't be june 21st, the otherwise official start of the season -- but august 1st.

i'm actually way too winded and psychologically depleted to care about the bar exam this time around. i really ought to care more because i just forked over another damned $ 650 to pay for the exam. but i can't help it; i've reached the stage of utter disregard for it.

i can't help but compare my attitude towards the bar to my attitude towards running. with running, i've learned to dedicate myself and to push myself. there are always finite goals to achieve: improve my cardio, improve my time, improve my speed, improve my endurance. in my mind, i've identified all the things, big and small, that i need to do in order to continue to improve. what's funny is that i never used to like running as much as i do now; i used to hate it! but having set goals and having fun in achieving them, i've learned to take something i really hate and turn it into something that i now look forward to every day and that really ends up making me feel great. like, running in the evening, when the day has cooled down and there's a soft cool breeze to soothe the sweat -- it really is a great way to cap off the day.

but the bar?

i have no markers to indicate how i progress -- at least not for the essays. for the MBEs, at least you can see how your score jumps up or junps down as you practice. no grader can screw you on your score. but the essays . . . . they make me feel aimless. they take away my drive.

i really don't know what to say about them. i worked really hard to improve them. like in july 2007's bar exam, my essays were all over the board. they weren't as organized as the ones i did for february 2008. as a result, those scores were all over the board -- they fell into a broad range. for february, i cut out a lot of the bullshit -- and learned to completely restructure my writing. and i ended up getting low scores with a very narrow score range.

like i mentioned before, all my day 1 essays scored the same, and all my day 2 essays scored the same as well. this tells me that for february 2008, i made the same mistakes in all the essays (or that the grader didn't even fucking read my essays at all), and these mistakes were actually kinda bigger than the mistakes that i made for the july 2007 essays. cumulatively, i scored lower this past february than i did last july.

this tells me i did worse this time around. or that the graders really are more generous when it comes to the july exams.

but i just don't know. it just does NOT make any sense to me. and not knowing what exactly it is that keeps me from jumping over the hurdle is just so frustrating. like, how can i improve if i don't know?

but that's just the point, isn't it? maybe i'm not supposed to improve. maybe i'm not supposed to be a member of this state's bar. after all, i graduated from an out-of-state law school.

you know, in studying for the february 2008 bar, i was more frustrated than anything. like, the whole process, the scoring, everything about the bar exam just made me feel rather angry and frustrated.

for this july one, as i go through the ropes, i'm still frustrated, but . . . i kinda give up, too. i literally do not know what to do. like, i'm re-reading yet again all my outlines to stimulate my memory of the black letter law -- but every few minutes, i'm still shaking my head because i've read this shit so many damned times. it drives me nuts how many times i've read, and re-read, and re-read this crap in the past year alone. only a multiple failure, someone who's been in my shoes, can understand how frustated just sitting alone with one's outlines is. no other feeling can compare.

but i'm done with it after this. forget this shit. fuck the bar. fuck the graders. i've gone through the rat race just like everyone else, and i've been through the wringer, i've spent so much goddamned money on this and lost out on a lot of potential income, and obviously, there's just something missing on my part. so this is truly it for me. i really don't want to be playing this game anymore.

done.