divine angst

So I’m in the middle of making more flashcards, and I am still liking this form of studying. What I am not liking is this thing called the Multistate Performance Test which appears to have taken up about six hours more of my Bar/Bri time (or would have, had I gone) than necessary.

Folks, it’s a CLOSED UNIVERSE EXERCISE. You read the file and the library, follow the instructions in the “task memo,” and write something down. You only get those 8 handwritten pages in which to do it (or 4600 words characters on the laptop), and you get 90 minutes—that’s an hour and a half. This, folks, is not hard stuff. Sure, practice is important, so Bar/Bri has thoughtfully given us a whole book of prior MPTs with which to practice this exercise. But it’s not something you can exactly TEACH or even learn. You just have to do it. Yet Bar/Bri spends 7 classroom hours on it.

That’s not to say that I would want OTHER Bar/Bri stuff to fill that space; but slicing a day or two off of Bar/Bri there at the end, when the remaining days are limited, would have been awesome.

Back to flashcards.

So, yeah, I was out of town yesterday. I hoped to spend my traveling time consolidating my Bar/Bri notes and maybe making some flashcards. But my flight out was delayed by two hours (two hours!), turning my two-and-a-half-hour stretch of downtime at my destination into . . . no downtime; I literally went from plane to train to taxi to appointment. And on the way back, it was the same in reverse order—appointment to taxi to train to plane. Oof.^[1]

All of this means I was VERY unproductive yesterday (I did get a bit done on the plane, but not as much as I hoped since I forgot to bring the set of notes I was in the middle of consolidating, leaving me to go over Con Law, which, frankly, was not the best use of my time). Today, I’m back to the grind, though having missed yesterday’s (apparently not very useful) Secured Transactions lecture, I’m feeling maybe a bit less overwhelmed than those who DID attend and were freaked out by it. I started to read the Mini Review outline and it was so awful that I decided to put it away and try the long outline before I attend the make-up lecture. (Ah, Sunday Bar/Bri. Joy.)

Right now, I’m busy making the Contracts flashcards I hoped to make yesterday; I really can only do so many before my hand turns into a claw and I have to stop to take a sip of wine, check my RSS feeds, refresh Facebook, or, you know, post something.

1. And of course, I was so stressed out while the delay was unfolding that I could not get any work done, though I started out well—I was typing away up until we got on the plane for the first time. After we had to get off the plane, though, I was not much up for studying, as I was completely freaked out about making it to my destination on time. Yeah, it was one of those delays . . . really vile, in fact, made worse by the fact that we were pulling away from the gate when someone’s mistake caused some mechanical damage, forcing us to pull back in, completely deplane, and wait for a new plane—a plane which was supposed to be someone else’s connection, so I feel bad that those people got delayed as well. ↩

It amazes me that we live in an age where one can fly across the country and home—and manage to get something done in between—in a period of less than 12 hours.

I’m pleased to announce that the student-written portion of the Law School Roundup will be taken over by ImNobody, over at Thanks, But No Thanks. Look for next Sunday’s Roundup over there!

I’ve really enjoyed doing the roundup for the last couple of years! Keep reading, everyone!

I’ve begun making flashcards.

I like it already—I can see that this studying method is actually going to be really useful for me.

That is, if I can get my hand not to cramp up after writing out about twelve cards. I am beginning to dread how long this is going to take me.

So the fear finally sunk in. It’s probably because of the scam that is the Bar/Bri graded essay; I did NOT need to see that “2″ scrawled at the top of my essay, in which I did get two additional issues right, even if the grader thought I wasted time reiterating the rule about injunctions. (But, but, teacher TOLD us to write down the rule!! What do you mean that wastes time?? Teacher said we’d GET points for that!!)

So I’m definitely now a little freaked out, moody, and, oh yes, freaked out. Back to consolidating my notes on Contracts.

I swear, these Bar/Bri lecturers are some of the WEIRDEST people. Today was yet another “What the . . .” day. Even worse, it was full of insane amounts of repetition and weird voices. And I think we get two more days of this guy.

Welcome to my last Law School Roundup. (I’ll be announcing my successor here in a few days.) Enjoy!

• Getting Ready. A (non)Token Minority Law Student
• Working Relationship. 3L Wannabe
• Dealing. Legally numb
• In Court. Mommy on the Floor
• Wildlife. Thanks, But No Thanks
• Advice. The War of All Against All
• Regression. La Mitotera
• Reality Check. Magic Cookie
• Bar/Bri Delusions. Thrown for a Loop

Look for next week’s Roundup at Evan Schaeffer’s Legal Underground. In two weeks, it’ll be at its new home.

Today has been a good day.

Mind you, it didn’t start out that way—I discovered what I thought was a major snafu this morning (OK, it was a snafu, though it wasn’t as severe as I thought it was). It got me really down and I was, to be honest, really, really unhappy. But then it got fixed, and fixed quickly, and then things rapidly took an upward turn after that.

I’m not going to say more than that, since I can’t really without doing in a fair amount of the last remaining shreds of anonymity that I still have, but suffice it to say that I’m in a pretty good mood.

Finally, a Bar/Bri lecture that was useful, informative, and, frankly, bearable. After two days of “They almost never test this, but here’s the rule anyway,” we finally got a lecturer who gave us informed, frank estimates of how many questions on a given area we’d see on the bar exam—and then spent a proportionate amount of time talking about that given area.^[1]

This may make another Saturday morning lecture bearable. May.

1. It didn’t hurt that he sounded like my relatives, being from my Home State and all. I particularly enjoyed his use of the word “son.” Homey. ↩

As if it weren’t hard enough to get back into reading for Bar/Bri after a four-day break, the power? services? something? in our building went off earlier tonight. Basically, all of the building-central services—cable, the water pump, and general building electricity (elevators, hallway lights, but not unit electricity) just stopped, all of a sudden. I looked out our window and saw two fire trucks right outside the front door of the building and got a little squiffy.

Neither Mr. Angst nor I was content to just switch the TV over to the PS3 and play Rock Band (at least not right away), so Mr. Angst hiked down several flights of stairs to find out what was going on. No one knew what was going on, so he hiked back up the stairs. I cooked dinner, he played on the drums, and we were patient. (Oh, and when I called Comcast to see if we had an outage—I called before we realized the problem was more widespread—I was informed me that our area had had an outage “for several hours” despite my telling the customer service agent several times that we had been WATCHING cable TV only 15 minutes before I called. Sigh.)

Eventually, everything came back on, so we’re watching House and I’m trying to come up with more excuses to NOT read Con Law. (How about, I took it; I took various Con Law-related classes; I have read more Con Law articles over the last year than anyone really should have to . . . . Vote for your favorite excuse in the comments!)

In other news, I made my first in-court appearances today, all by myself (yes, this is allowable under the rule allowing me to practice without a license as a “senior law student or law graduate”). I think both of them went well. One went exactly as it was supposed to and was, if possible, even easier than I thought it would be. The other was . . . not quite smooth sailing, though the result was pretty much what we wanted. Anyway, I got up, held my own, and walked out with good results for my clients. I guess that’s what being a lawyer is all about, so, all in all, it was a good day.

I just spent several hours building clerkship applications in Oscar and printing my cover letters and resumes for non-Oscar judges, only to discover that my resume stated I graduated from college last month. Oops.

Problem is fixed now (reprinting resumes as I type), but what a waste of time!

I’m enjoying my weekend without Bar/Bri. I ran errands yesterday, confirmed a few things on my clerkship applications, drank a margarita, and then got a good night’s sleep. I have several things to accomplish today, but I think I can do them at a leisurely pace, so I’m hoping to continue enjoying the weekend without Bar/Bri. ^[1]

1. I will be doing some practice questions at some point today or tomorrow. I need to get some of those done. ↩

Forget the four day break from Bar/Bri; I need a weekend. Getting my body used to getting up for work every day has been . . . unpleasant. Mostly because I still haven’t gotten my body used to going to bed at a decent hour. And there’s no real reason for me to stay up; I just end up on the couch watching Law & Order repeats or laying in bed reading a book I’m not sure I’m enjoying.

So I’m off to work this morning, and then some administrative errands this afternoon (yay! no Bar/Bri! time to run errands!), but I think I might be taking a nap this afternoon. And definitely sleeping in tomorrow.

Bar/Bri continues apace. Today’s lecture was WAY too long and the lecturer spends too much time repeating the stuff in the notes instead of highlighting the nuance. He is, at least, entertaining. I have given up on the Paced Program for the time being and am instead just trying to keep up with the reading.

Work is heating up—I have four cases on my desk including two court appearances scheduled for Monday, and everyone keeps giving me more responsibility. It’s actually very cool—people seem to trust that I can handle the matters they’re giving me and that gives me confidence that I, well, actually CAN handle the matters they’re giving me.

Also, my last set of grades came in today, which means I can no longer procrastinate on my clerkship applications. This weekend, therefore, is set aside not for doing practice questions but instead for writing cover letters, polishing up my writing samples, and building my online applications. Right now, it doesn’t feel quite real—I’ve been telling myself for months that I’ll send my applications once grades come in; well, grades are in, so I guess have to back that up.^[1]

Oh, and yes, grades are in, which means I am officially done. Even though my degree audit doesn’t actually indicate that I’ve completed my last two requirements, I know I have and I know I’m done. I am officially a Juris Doctor. Hallelujah!

1. I realize this makes it sound like I don’t actually want to apply for clerkships. I actually DO want to apply for clerkships; it’s just the reality of actually having to write the cover letters and get my writing samples ready that I balk at. I think cover letters are just another opportunity to screw up, and as far as writing samples goes, I hate that I have lots of really good stuff that’s either cowritten, and so inappropriate to send, or too long, or not doctrinal enough, or is just too short. I have been looking for that perfect 10-12 page writing opportunity forever, and I have never quite achieved it. Everything I have that length is cowritten or or casual memo. Gah. ↩

So Commercial Paper wasn’t as bad as the outline made it out to be. Which is sort of what I thought might happen—it’s not that the topic is all that hard, it’s just promissory notes and checks and the like, it’s that the terminology used is non-intuitive and confusing. Having it explained by a man on a video screen actually helped a lot.

On another note, I already have a court appearance to make for my summer job. When they told me they’d get me into court a lot, they were NOT lying. Luckily, we have no Bar/Bri lecture on Monday, so I don’t need to worry about any timing issues. Whew!

Off to read about Suretyships. And maybe start on Evidence since I didn’t take that class. Eeek!

Commercial paper is the first subject I’ve encountered where I honestly don’t understand half the words I’m reading. Reading the outline is like reading a overwritten contract, and it makes my head hurt to try and decipher what the hell is going on.

I think it’s probably a good thing it’s only an essay subject, but no less terrifying because of it.

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Law School Roundup! Enjoy!

• Soup It’s what’s for dinner. Ostranenie
• Lessons A list. Legally numb
• Changes However good, tough to deal with. PT-LawMom
• Ideas Pitch it! I’d buy that. Law School Sucks - And So Do Lawyers
• Update You don’t have to come back, but we wish you would. Reasonable Expectations
• Mommy Wars I wish you had hip-checked her. Butterflyfish
• Avoidance That’s taking it, um, to the extreme. The War of All Against All
• Ew I’m not saying I haven’t had a similar experience. I’m just saying, ew. A New Duck
• Singlemindedness It’s just depressing how accurate this is. Cella Bellum
• Productivity Sort of strange timing, but hey, you do what you can. Lag Liv
• Thoughtful But maybe not thoughtful enough. Think Like a Woman. Act Like a Man.

Look for next week’s Roundup at Evan Schaeffer’s Legal Underground. I’ve received a few emails from folks who might be interested in taking over the Roundup, so if you haven’t contacted me but you are interested, let me know soon! I’ll be passing the torch in the next few weeks—maybe as soon as before my next scheduled Roundup—so the window of opportunity is narrowing!