divine angst

Bar/Bri starts today.

I’ve been looking over all the materials they’ve given me—the class schedule, the Paced Program, a handout called “The Bar/Bri Method”—and I’m put in mind of that silly essay-writing-method class some of my classmates were fearmongered into taking our first year. Except Bar/Bri is less obvious about the fearmongering; it’s more subtle. So, instead of “If you don’t attend this whole-day lecture on how to write law school exams, you’ll FAIL!” it’s “If you keep up with this completely impossible schedule we’ve provided you so that you can internalize and memorize all of the information you’ll need for the bar exam, you should be fine. Oh, and while you’re spending eight hours a day in class or reading the hundreds of pounds of books we gave you, be sure to stay healthy and rested! The bar exam is FUN!”

I’m not scared of the bar yet, and I’m not sure if I should be or not. There’s a lot of information sitting piled up next to me in green, shiny books, but I’m not feeling any angst about getting through it all. (I am feeling angst about being able to stay awake in class, but I think once I get rid of the lingering allergies I brought back from the wedding I was in last weekend, I shouldn’t have that problem any more.) I guess I’ll start to feel more nervous once I start doing practice questions and essays. Since I haven’t actually taken a closed-book exam since college^[1] I think that might be the shock I need.

I guess right now I’m still basking in the glow of being done—of turning in The Task, of being done with my major journal duties (though I do have a few journal things to follow up on right now…), of being out of law school. The bar threatens to kill my buzz, and I guess I am just not quite willing to to let it, yet.

1. I did have one exam 1L year to which we could only bring the rule book and a single piece of paper, but that’s still not closed book; I had another with a closed-book multiple-choice portion, but the essays were open book, so, again, not really closed book. ↩