This blog is kaput.

Since the primary purpose of this particular blog was to post my thoughts on my bar studying experience, and the bar is over, I'm ending my time with Blogger. I don't like this format as much as I like wordpress, anyway. If you care to continue reading about my life, I'll still post the occasional blog on irrationalbasis.wordpress.com

Thanks to those of you who've read my posts here and supported and encouraged me this summer. I hope we all pass and don't have to repeat the experience again!!!

Well, it's over.

I took the CA Bar and survived. A few notes:

1) it was not as hard as I expected it to be. I felt like if you KNEW the law, you could totally rock the thing. *I* did not know the law for a couple of issues, but still, it was not the all-intimidating-oh-my-gosh-how-does-anyone-pass?!?! experience that people made it out to be.

2) the MBE was ridiculous. Whoever said PMBR/Barbri/MM questions were harder than the actual MBE did NOT know what they were talking about. One half of the MBE, at least, was a disaster. I think, if I fail, it will be because I scored a 4 on the MBE.

3) the whole thing was very anticlimactic (sp?) Everyone showed up in jeans and t-shirts and flip-flops, we crowded into this massive warehouse, and the instructions given in a dry monotone voice by the head proctor made us out to be total idiots. All in all, it was sort of a disappointing finale to the summer of studying.

4) Handwriting sucks, but it’s doable. Ending the day on Thursday, I definitely felt I had been at a material disadvantage handwriting the test. Granted, EVERY ONE ELSE IN THE ROOM was typing, so that was a little disheartening, but I really felt that handwriters deserved more time since all the others could outline on the computer and then fill in the body of text later, whereas I found myself writing things about 3x each just so I could get a decent idea of how to approach the question without having too many arrows or crossed-out sections. Our section’s proctor was so nice. At the end of Day 1 she asks me, “So honey, will you have a computer by thursday???” uh no. Bring the lined paper.

5) People are weird. At the lunch breaks, i saw people stretching like mad - legs in the air, arms every which way… i mean, really - have you NEVER sat for 3 hrs before??!?!?! it was bizarre. A few girls had made duct-tape purse straps to go with their little plastic bags. Interesting.

All in all, I don’t know if I passed or if I didn’t. Regardless of the outcome, I will not be surprised. I felt really good about the essay q’s today and both of the performance tests. Not so great about the MBE and the first day’s essays, but whatever. I heard a few people talking and it seems some people didn’t finish the essays, others didn’t know the law… I mean, I think almost all of us feel it could go either way.

It was definitely not as bad as I’d anticipated. AND - for those of you taking the Bar next year, etc. I really DON’T think you need to do Barbri. Everything that was on the essays & PT’s, I got from my MicroMash materials. I think though, in retrospect, I wish I had done more PMBR stuff. Maybe not the seven/six day course, but perhaps the 3 day course, or just spent more time doing their outlines. There were some things on the MBE that I had NEVER heard of before, that I think PMBR probably would have covered and did cover in their materials.

So - I feel ok about the Bar. I am not disappointed in myself, although I know there was stuff on there that I didn’t know, but tried my hardest to B.S. I’ll let you know how it turns out in Nov. But, tonight, I am on my way to utah!!!

Handwriting the Bar

Handwriting the exam sucked, but I did it. On my mom’s advice, I bought pens of various widths, which were supposed to keep my hand from cramping, but I’m not convinced that it was the pens as much as it was stress that kept my hand from freezing up. I limited myself to an hour on each of the essays. I spent about 15 mins reading and outlining the essay, and 45 mins writing. On the PT, I spent about an hour reading/outlining, and then 2 hrs writing. That seemed to work pretty well. I was able to get most of my points down, although there was A LOT of crossing out and little notations off to the side. I tried my best to keep my handwriting legible. If, for some reason, you have to write the entire Bar like me, when you spend a good majority of the summer anticipating TYPING it, remind yourself of the little blessings like - 1) you won’t be the candidate whose computer fails them in the middle of the PT and has to pick up where you left off handwriting the rest of the test, dealing with the mental distress of - was the rest of your answer saved??!?!?!? 2) if you fail, at least you can blame it *partially* on the fact that you had to handwrite at the last minute and didn’t have the time you really needed to write all that you wanted; 3) when you finish the test, you finish the test. There is no need to worry about uploading, downloading, internet connections, etc. You hand your booklet to the proctor and you are free to leave. It’s over.

But - my advice: If you possibly possibly can, try to get transferred to a writing center. It is really discouraging as a handwriter to look up and see everyone else outlining on their computers, while you are trying to get your info together so that your essay isn’t a total disaster. Also, there’s less people to deal with. I think we had at least a couple hundred in our warehouse. Chances are, if you’re handwriting, you get to stay at some swanky hotel and handwrite in a nice little conference room with a handful of other people. Fewer people = fewer distractions = better performance.

I hope that at least some of the people in my room felt a little sorry for me, having to watch me handwrite and stretch out my poor fingers when it was all over. One girl made the comment that maybe handwriters have better answers because we don’t have time to discuss totally irrelevant stuff and have to actually limit ourselves to what the question asks. Maybe. I just hope that the examiners go through thousands and thousands of typed answers, just to come across that one handwritten answer that eeks out all the sympathy possible… Handwriting sucks because it’s slow and you don’t do it on a regular basis, but you can still do it and finish on time and make all the necessary points. After seeing some of the craziness some other people went through with their computers, part of me thinks I might handwrite again if I have to do this a second time…….