A Change of Pace...

Remember how in the beginning, you used to go to the BarBri lectures, congratulate yourself after the 3 hour lectures because that time you spent listening, surfing the web, and daydreaming counted as "studying", went brain dead for a couple hours during lunch, then spent a couple hours working on beautiful, extensive outlines followed by some MBEs? And of course, we'd read Conviser. Remember that, way back when?

It seems that most of the time was spent just learning this new, Bar exam way of looking at the subjects and most of the time was spent in preparation. We didn't feel comfortable doing essays when we didn't really know the rules, and there were lots of nice, passive ways to study.

Well, those days are gone. Now, we'd bore ourselves silly trying to do the outlines. We are forced to do the essays because we've done all that other crap. Which forces us into the arena of ACTIVE studying. Which my brain does not like.

To be honest, I've barely looked at my outlines. I listen to the Essay Advantage lectures on the subject for a brief overview and pretty much am down to trying to memorize the rules and going through essays trying to spot issues and bring up the correct rule statement. And applying the facts correctly. I know that my writing style doesn't suck, I've come too close and had too many people tell me that I'm writing the way they want me to. I just blank out and forget a couple key issues come game day. That, combined with a mediocre application of the facts to my analysis, brings me juuuuuuuuust....a......liiiiittttle..... shy of 1440.

Damn, that's discouraging. You'd think I'd be all gung-ho wanting to overshoot the whole exam and pass with a 2000, but no. I'm just trying to push myself over the edge a teeny bit and really, just need a bit of good luck. Again, just doin' what I can to squeak by! This is not a good philosophy in life.

And honestly, I just can't, simply can't, study for 8 hours a day. I mean, really. 8 hour days used to be combined with the aforementioned BarBri crap taking up half that time, leaving only a couple hours of real essay practice. Now, I'm expected to do 8 hours of active studying? I just can't. I try. But I can't. Someone please tell me some miracle bar exam stories. You know, the "I only studied for 3 weeks and went on a trip to Hawaii and still passed the CA bar exam" types...