My bar exam reflections

Now that the bar exam is over and now that I’ve finally had a proper night’s sleep, I can reflect on the bar.

Why do some people get all trussed up for the bar?? I saw several women wearing dresses or dressy clothes, full makeup, hair done, and even high heels. Why? I showed up in my comfy sweats and forget about makeup. I showered each morning but that’s about the extent of it. I can’t believe anyone would actually be comfortable taking the bar in full makeup, tight clothes and uncomfortable shoes. The only reason I would have worn heels to the bar would be to have a spiked heel handy to drive into my jugular if something catastrophic happened, such as my laptop crashing during the essay/MPT portion.

The essay topics were totally random. At least my guess that Wills was going to be on the bar turned out to be correct. I was blindsided by the Admin Law topic but it was pretty similar to the February Admin Law question so I was able to answer it. Corporations really confused me. A lot of the essay questions were very open-ended and annoyingly vague. I wanted more details!!! They didn’t have Torts or Criminal Law, so I was disappointed at that considering I was only 2 points away from getting perfect scores on both topics on the last bar. Also, since they tested Criminal Procedure in the morning, I was so sure they would test Secured Transactions in the afternoon, but no such luck. I had sent Cyber Janitor my bar essay topic breakdown of all the topics tested on the CO bar for the last 4-5 years, and he pointed out that Crim Pro and Secured Transactions seemed to always be tested together, so I was looking for Secured Transactions. No dice.

I had a slightly panic-inducing moment after the afternoon essays and MPT on Day 1 when time was called. I glanced over at my seatmate’s laptop screen and noticed he only had three or four sentences on his ExamSoft essay screen. His essay was very brief, while all my essays averaged between 2,000 and 3,000 character (near the limit of 4,000 characters allowed per essay). I too had gone into brain dumping mode, as Cyber Janitor put it. It’s funny, normally if you saw that someone had written a very short essay, you’d probably think he had done badly, but my confidence is at such a low point because of my two bar exam failures that I actually started to panic, wondering if my essays were too long (if there’s such a thing!). Even if he had bubbled in a giant smiley face on his MBE scoresheet, I probably still would’ve freaked out too, wondering if I should have bubbled in a giant smiley face on mine as well.

Speaking of the MBE, I thought that the PM one was more difficult than the AM one. I didn’t fill in all my answers at once. I only answered the questions that I knew and the ones that I had to really think about, I left those for the second run through the MBE booklet. The really difficult questions were saved for last so I could focus on them with the time I had left. I finished the first run-through in about an hour with 53 answers. Then I did two or three more run-throughs until all the questions were answered. I really have no clue how I did on the MBE though.

I can’t even say if I did better than previously. I don’t feel GOOD or BAD about my performance. I just feel indifferent. I have zero confidence in myself at this point. It’s been a difficult year with having my ego stomped flat twice by the Colorado Board of Law Examiners. I’m pretty sure I failed the bar. I don’t want to get my hopes up only to have them crushed yet again when the results are released.

It’s over

Well, my third dance with the Colorado Bar Exam monster is now over. I don’t feel any relief though. I’m still numb, but I also have the overwhelming urge to put a gun in my mouth and cry myself to sleep tonight.

I feel like I failed the bar again. When time was called at the end of the afternoon MBE and the test materials were being gathered up, I had the sudden urge to cry. It probably doesn’t help that the lady in charge of administering the bar exam knows me. SHE KNOWS ME!!! You know it’s bad when not only do the proctors, but also the bar exam administrator, know you by name. One of my proctors was the same one from February, and when she saw me she came over and said “Hey FBE!” I just hope the others around me didn’t figure out it wasn’t my first time.

However, I did feel better knowing that there was at least one fellow repeater in the facility with me, Cyber Janitor. I think I spotted him but I’m not sure since he didn’t have facial hair. Was that you who approached the stage at the front to speak with the bar exam administrator during the afternoon MBE?

On the bright side, it did feel like the bar exam went more quickly this time around. I remember how the first bar exam felt like a marathon, but this time around it wasn’t agonizingly long.  I can’t believe some of you have to endure a third day of the bar exam though! I’m definitely out of steam at this point.

Day One

I can’t decide if I want to vomit uncontrollably or slit my wrists. I honestly have no clue how I did today. I felt numb and disconnected all day, if that makes sense. It’s like having had an arm and leg sawed off, so by the time they get to the third limb, you’re already numb to the pain and trauma.

I can’t believe they tested Admin Law twice in a row, after not having tested it in about three years! They also tested Evidence, Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure, Agency, CO Family Law, Federal Jurisdiction, Corporations/Contracts (not sure what was going on with that essay question to be honest), and Wills.

The MPTs were kind of difficult for me, so I’m not sure how I did. What did everyone else think of the MPTs? I’m not trying to be one of those jerks who discusses the bar exam with everyone in an attempt to psych them out – it’s just that I’ve never really gotten to discuss the bar exam with anyone before.

I’m just glad today is over with.

I’m finally back online!

I apologize for the lack of posts lately, but I haven’t had internet access since I left home to drive to my sister’s last week. Sister doesn’t have internet at home, and Mom has the slowest dialup I’ve ever encountered so I haven’t attempted to use the internet because at this point it’s best not to assume the risk of becoming even more aggravated than I already am.

I just checked in at the hotel next to the Merchandise Mart, and I’m freaking out. I studied a lot at home and at my sister’s place, as well as on Saturday but yesterday I really slacked off. I did a handful of essays and some MBE practice questions but mostly I slept a lot during the day and also discovered the reality show “Dog the Bounty Hunter”. That show is addictive! I feel guilty for slacking off yesterday and today although I did some studying, but I figure sleep and rest is more important at this point, right?

For the rest of today I’m going to do some more MBE practice questions using my Study Group software (which is GREAT!). I’m also going to do a set of essays that I think will be on the bar tomorrow. I’m going to practice MBE questions tomorrow night after the first day of the bar as well. I’ll also probably do a set of 10 MBE questions on Wednesday morning as a warm-up, a suggestion I’ve encountered on several bar exam advice websites and blogs.

I’m trying to keep things in perspective. I missed passing the bar by only 6 points both times. My downfall was the MBE, more specifically Torts. I bombed it very badly both times. This time around, I’ve been doing a LOT of practice MBE Torts questions as well as studying Torts and I’ve seen quite a bit of improvement. So I’m trying to remind myself that even if I get the same scores in everything else but improve my Torts score, I’ll pass.

I’m so glad to have had the support and advice of fellow bar repeaters. It has meant a lot to me to know that I wasn’t alone in failing the bar exam. When I first started this blog, I was devastated from having failed the bar for a second time and felt like I was the only one in my position. I never expected that so many people would find my blog and post such supportive and helpful comments. I never knew there were so many people out there that could totally relate to how I was feeling. The advice of so many people has proven to be very invaluable in my bar prep. I’m glad I didn’t have to go it alone this time around, so thank you to everyone who reads my blog, whether you’ve commented or not. After this bar is over, not only will I be anxiously awaiting my results, but I’ll be watching out for yours as well. Here’s hoping that all of us pass!

A shell of my former self

Wow, I really feel like crap. I’ve basically been existing on Baked Cheetos and Diet Mountain Dew for the last week. And now my back is absolutely killing me. It’s so stiff and sore I might have to break down and get my first-ever professional massage. I’ve always been hesitant to try it but at this point I just want relief. I’m leaving here to drive to my sister’s tomorrow, and it’s quite the drive so I bet my back will be even more sore afterwards. My plan is to study tomorrow morning and part of the early afternoon, and then hit the road.

I’m flying to Colorado on Saturday and going straight to my mom’s house to hit the books as soon as I get there. However, I might make a pit stop at Beau Jo’s which has the best pizza I’ve ever had! Unfortunately Beau Jo’s is only in Colorado so I can’t get it anywhere else. I know pizza isn’t any better for me than Diet Dew and Cheetos but screw it, I look like hell so what’s the difference? I’ve been living in my sweats and haven’t worn makeup in a week and half. I know I said I would make exercise and eating well more of a priority this time around but the horrid 90%-100% humidity and extreme heat here hasn’t exactly helped since I’ve been having allergy issues. Not to worry, personal hygiene remains at a high premium as it’s always been. I’m pretty OCD about cleanliness, but it’s kicked into overdrive lately. I’ve been taking showers twice a day, once in the mornings to wake up and wash my hair, and once in the afternoons/evenings because I always feel gross and greasy after a long day of studying (although I don’t wash my hair at those times). I seriously don’t understand how people can go several days without bathing or showering. Are there really people who do that before the bar? A shower takes 5-10 minutes max, so I don’t really get it.

I think it will actually do me good to get away from my desk for awhile, although I really don’t want to interact with society. I tried to do that on Saturday when I went to get takeout dinner for us (as a nice gesture for Sarge since he’s done so much) and I almost ended up strangling the cashier. So it’s best if I just try to avoid all contact with human beings until after the bar.

A night of bar dreams

I had several very strange bar dreams last night. In the first dream, my bar results had just arrived in the mail, and Sarge opened the envelope for me as I anxiously awaited the news. Sarge looked up me with a smile and said I’d passed, beating my old score of 270 by over 300 points, which isn’t even possible in Colorado. Even more weird was that I hadn’t even taken the bar yet, but I was already getting my results back?

In the second dream, they told us that the bar exam was starting TODAY, not next Tuesday as planned, so I had to scramble to get to the facility in time to take the bar. Then while I was sitting there, there was a huge power outage so the entire place went pitch black.

When I woke up this morning with the dreams still fresh in my mind, I suddenly wondered what the Colorado folks would do if there was actually a mass power outage during the bar exam. What would actually result if something happened to completely disrupt the bar exam? Would they reschedule the bar exam for us to take at a later date, or would they call the July bar a wash and make everyone take it again in February?

I’m getting way too paranoid. In exactly 7 days from now, I’ll be standing in line outside the Denver Merchandise Mart with a sinking feeling in my stomach.

Countdown timer on my laptop screen

Thanks to Grand Poobah for the link to where people can download a timer clock that stays in the foreground of your laptop screen to remind you how much time is left until the bar. Because I’ve been struggling with motivation for the last few days, I figured the timer would be a good kick in the pants to get me going again. Even better, you can customize the timer so that it doesn’t show certain time segments. For instance, if you look at Grand Poobah’s blog he has a clock on the right side of his blog which not only shows the days, hours, minutes, and seconds but also shows the milliseconds. It’s guaranteed to send your blood pressure skyrocketing.

I took off the seconds counter from my own clock because otherwise I was going to stab myself. I think it’s less panic-inducing if I limit the timer to days, hours, and minutes only. The link for downloading your own desktop clock is http://www.nestersoft.com/timeleft.

Taking the bar exam is like being pregnant

I originally found this blog post written by http://dasvidas.blogspot.com several months ago while waiting for February bar results, but the author has since then set his blog as private, although you can see the cached copy here. Anyway, I thought this was so accurate and hilarious I had forwarded it to some of my law school friends, and I just dug it up from my sent e-mail folder to post for your reading pleasure.

For those lucky enough to avoid three years of law school, there is a shroud of mystery which surrounds the entire bar exam process. Unless you have actually sat for the bar, it is very difficult to understand why those who haven taken the exam consider it such a traumatic experience. I will now attempt to explain why the bar exam is such a nightmare.

Before you can sit for the bar, you must complete:

The Bar Application

Completing the bar application is almost as bad as taking the bar itself. Some states like to make everyone’s lives easier and allow electronic filing of said application. Other states require paper applications to be printed out and filled in. For example, New Jersey’s thirty page application can neither be filled out nor filed on-line. New Jersey requires that you print out and manually fill in the 30 page packet. Then NJ has the balls to go and say that it “prefers” the use of a “typewriter”.

First, I really don’t care what the state of NJ prefers. I prefer to not take the multi-state portion of the bar exam, having passed it by 26 points only one year ago. I prefer not having to list every job I’ve had since the age of 18, or every residence I’ve lived in since the age of 16. I prefer not having to go to the DMV to obtain a copy of my “certified drivers record.” (I can only imagine how difficult it is for one state agency to obtain records from another state agency. It’s probably best that I wait in line four hours to obtain a piece of paper issued by the state to later put in an envelope and mail back to the state.) I prefer not having to think of eight different people to serve as my references, especially when those eight people cannot be: a law student, a relative or a co-worker. News flash NJ, those are the only three groups of people I have spoken to in the last four years. What’s that you say? College friends? YEAH! Great idea! Some of my best friends from college don’t even know my first name. They might be able to tell you about my beer pong prowess, or about the time we used the handicap designated electric wheel chair ramp to load kegs into a van, or my propensity for Jack Daniels. However, I’m pretty sure they would not have a lot to offer in terms of my professionalism, dedication and commitment to veracity and honesty.

Secondly, NJ, what makes you think I have a typewriter? Are you serious? Like the other 100% of the people applying for this bar exam, I have a “computer”. Computers are kind of like typewriters, except that they still make them. New Jersey, if you prefer to have the applications typed, make like Pennsylvania and permit users to fill them out online.

Once you have filed your bar application, you must begin to prepare for the bar exam. This usually involves attending:

The Bar Class

Once you have completed the traumatic filing process, you then shell out $2500 to sit in a classroom for six weeks to learn all of the stuff you didn’t learn in law school because your crappy Torts professor spent two months exploring the subtle distinction between a “manufacturing defect” and a “design defect” in product liability cases.

But its worse than that. The bar class isn’t about re-learning things you learned during your law school tenure. The bar class is about learning things that you have never learned before and will never need to know again A lot of the new information is never taught in law school because it either 1) never comes up, or 2) is so trivial that it would be silly to mention. Those are basically the prerequisites bar examiners use when deciding which questions belong on the bar. See, e.g., liabity of bee keeper for bee attack turns on whether the kept bees are honey making bees or crazy african bees.

Once you have spent a total of eight weeks trying to learn every minutiae of law that could possibly be thrown at you, you get to take:

The Bar Exam

In the state of Florida, every person that sits for the Florida bar takes the bar in Tampa Bay at the same time, in the same room. If tension and nervousness could some how be harnessed into an alternate energy source, the auditorium in the Tampa Bay Convention Center could power the state of Florida for an entire 3 months.

It’s almost amusing to see the way people freak out right before the exam. When I took the Florida bar, I literally had a friend come running up to me 4 minutes before the exam having a melt down about “riparian water rights.”

My Friend: “Vidas, Vidas!!!! Do you remember what the BarBri lady said about riparian water rights?”
Me: “No. If it’s on there, it will be one question max. Worth one point, if that.”
My Friend: “But what if it’s in an essay??! An essay is worth a lot more than one point.”
Me: “Uhhh. I don’t know. Go ask Scott.”
My Friend: [Gasping noises.]
Me: “I’ve got a paper bag for you to breath into. Will that help?”

When the magic hour final arrives, you are corraled like cattle being led into a slaughter house. It’s interesting to see how each individual reacts to the inordinately stressful situation. Some people talk non-stop; nervous gibberish. Some people recite elements to different causes of action. Some people use the bathroom eight times before the exam. Some people won’t talk. Some people can’t sit still and walk around until the test is distributed. I, myself, must have used the water fountain a half dozen times before sitting down to take the test. Thank god for coping mechanisms.

Even after the exam starts, you can tell which people are shitting the bed. In Florida, you are paired two to a table. My friend Scott’s table mate would pound the table everytime he encountered a question to which he didn’t know the answer. My table mate was a classic “second guesser”. He’d write a bunch of stuff down, read it and proceed to erase the entire page. He would erase so hard that the entire table would shake. The Florida bar has three essays. I think this guy wrote about eight that day. By the time the essay portion of the exam was over, he was about a foot deep in eraser shavings.

And the sad thing is that when you see people shitting the bed, you don’t feel bad for the person. You feel happy it isn’t you.

Schadenfreude!

Gezunheidt.

The Aftermath

As you fill in that last bubble on the scantron sheet, there is total and utter joy. You did it! You finished the bar exam. But somehow, by the time you get up from your seat and hand in your test booklet you have managed to convince yourself that you failed the exam. Just to make sure you totally failed, you and a friend spend the four hour car ride home comparing each of your answers, question by question.

So the relief you feel from completing the bar is almost non-existent. The crushing weight on your shoulders stays with you for another six weeks until the bar examiners post results on line. The day before the bar results are announced, you hear people say things like: “I know I failed; that exam was impossible. I hope the next version is easier”, “I just hope everyone passed. Everyone studied so hard. We all deserve to pass.” Then the results are announced. And how things change. Those same people now say things like: “I knew I nailed it. It wasn’t that bad. It was a lot of hype, but in the end not that hard.” “Oh my god, did you hear so-and-so failed the bar? I know, what a bitch. Total karma, right?”.

The day the results are announced, there is a frantic explosion of telephone calls and texting and IM’ing. If you fail the bar and don’t want anybody to know about it, I would seriously consider moving. At the very least, you should stop taking phone calls for a good month.

Final Thoughts

The bar exam is a stupid, stupid attorney right of passage. How well you do on the bar exam has no correlation to the type of attorney you will become. A lot of really bad attorneys have passed the bar. A lot of really good attorneys failed the first or second time around.

In the end, I think that the best way to describe the entire process is like a pregnancy. The bar exam is like a baby you carry for two months. During those two months, your life completely changes. You stop drinking (lest you lose a day of studying). You rarely see your friends or family. You get weird food cravings during those late night study sessions. You gain weight from the aforementioned food cravings and because you no longer have time to go to the gym. You have horrible mood swings due to the tremendous amount of stress you are under. (See, e.g., the “Dog Killing Story”) And by the last week of your pseudo pregnancy, you just “want it out” of you. There’s even post-partum depression associated with taking the bar. You are happy that the bar is over, but feel an overwhelming sense of sadness because you don’t know whether you have passed or failed.

Anyway, good luck to all those out there studying for the bar. In the end, it’s just a test. A really, really, really horrible life sucking test.

I’m becoming a bitch

I’ve been doing much better on MBE questions, but I can’t help feeling like I’ll end up falling on my face again on the actual MBE anyway. It seems like I could practice all the MBE questions I want but then when I go to take the actual MBE, the questions seem completely different and foreign, nothing like the practice questions I’ve been doing for weeks. Has anyone else felt this way?

Maybe I just didn’t study enough for the MBE the last couple of times. I hope that’s it. My new strategy seems to have helped quite a bit because I have noticed improvement.

My motivation has been flagging the last couple of days. I was great the first few days of this week, but now I feel like I’m just going through the motions. I’m sick of doing practice essays and can’t even look at them much less write them out. It doesn’t help that I’ve had to get up at 6 am every morning to shower and get ready to take Stepdaughter to camp. Then when I get home I’m already tired, even though I’ve been going to bed early every night. At least it’s Friday so I can sleep in late tomorrow.

I can also feel my pre-bar angry-rabid-animal surliness kicking in big time. I’d already decided to leave for my sister’s next Wednesday instead of Thursday but perhaps I should push it up to Tuesday. I’ve snapped at Stepdaughter and Sarge a couple of times already in the last 24 hours and perhaps it might be wise to separate myself from them especially since I know I’ll become even more bitchy as the bar gets closer. It’s not fair to them, but I can’t help being pissed off at the world that my own personal hell isn’t ending for 11 more days. I’ve been irritable towards Stepdaughter on more than one occasion, especially when she isn’t being very cooperative in waking up in the mornings and getting ready for camp, not to mention trying to put her to bed at night, which invariably becomes an hour-long ordeal. Sarge does most if not all of the work in putting her to bed and getting her ready, but it’s still not easy on me during this time, particularly when I’d love nothing more than to claim Paris Hilton’s former jail cell right now.

Minor setback

I know I said in my last post that I was feeling better and less stressed, but I had a meltdown yesterday, mostly consisting of calling my sister and sobbing. I don’t even know where it came from. It’s not like I had just taken a practice MBE and scored badly or anything like that. I was practicing essays at the time and I guess I started thinking about all the stuff we have to do within the next few weeks, such as the move, driving the car to my sister’s, et cetera and I freaked out.

But I’m back on track now. I’m primarily doing the S&T book today, reviewing the material and doing practice questions. I’ll do another set of 9 essays later today. At this point it’s just practice and repetition, like I’d planned.

I’m sick of the bar though. I just want to take the damn thing already and end this misery.