Finally...

GOOD LUCK to everyone taking the various state Bars!!!!!!! Freedom is four days away!!! Good luck!!

I'm Sick of Studying.

Tomorrow I head down to my hotel near San Mateo to get settled in for the Tues-Thurs fun. Thursday evening, immediately after finishing the Exam, I’ll drive back up to SF, unload my car, reload my things into my sexy man’s X, and hit the road for Hanksville, Utah for a FABULOUS 10day vacation in the middle of nowhere.

Right now I don’t really know how I feel about taking the Bar. I can’t say that I feel “ready,” but I do feel ready to be done with studying. I’ve already started compiling a short list in my head of “things I’d do differently” to post at some later point and remind myself of - if I have to do this again. While I am not confident that I’ve crammed enough into my memory to get the requisite points to pass, I don’t think I’m going to feel too embarrassed/stupid if my name is not on the list come November.

My friend A and I talked about this before. So much of taking the Bar - especially the MBE - is just interpreting things the way the examiners want you to interpret it. Just this last week I came across a PMBR MBE q that was almost exactly the same as a MicroMash MBE I’d done a while ago. I got it wrong the first time around on MM, so I made sure to do it right on PMBR. Um - no. The way I’d answered the MM q was RIGHT on the PMBR q. The facts were pretty much identical; the situation was the same. Yet, two different answers. AND - several of the PMBR q’s will give you two, sometimes even three “right” answers! What?!?! Anyways, I feel like part of passing has got to be presenting the material in the way the examiners like it. And, I refuse to feel DUMB just because I was unable to perform appropriately during three days, when I’ve spent the last 8wks studying this stuff!!

I’m really curious how the handwriting thing is gonna go. When I called to ask about changing test centers, they told me to just go the laptop center I’m already registered with and they’ll provide me handwriting materials there. I wonder though - will I be in the same room with all the typers? That would SUCK. I’ll have earplugs, but - ugh - the intimidation of seeing all those fingers flying over the keyboard while I’m clenching/unclenching my hand to keep the bloodflow. I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of getting a new computer, re-registering the software, dealing with the bar people, etc. etc., and I wasn’t even sure if they’d LET me re-register so late in the game, so I decided to just handwrite the Exam. BUT - it really stinks that I’ve spent the last oh, ten years, perfecting my typing skills, only to have to handwrite one of the most important exams of my life. Do they grade handwritten exams with more leniency?? ha. I read one of the model essay answers and it was five pages - typed. How am I supposed to compete with that?!?

In this moment, as this post has progressed, I am totally over the Bar Exam (as opposed to two days ago when I broke down crying on the way to dinner). Whatever happens, happens. Things happen for a reason. I have love, life, a warm bed, great friends, awesome family, a decent resume, and in a week I will be floating down the Green River with the most ridiculously fantastic beer cozy in my hand (seriously - two layers of closed-cell foam + wrapped in Mylar + sealed w/silicon) and nothing in the world to do but layer myself with regular applications of 30SPF. It’s a good life, regardless of what the NCBE or Cal Bar Readers think.