the ridiculousness

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.

travel repercussions

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. ((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.))

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.

me = tired

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.

Law School Roundup Announcement

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!

flashcards! yay!

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.

oh, frak

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.

wow, talk about the Mondays

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.

Weekly Law School Roundup #125

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.

TGIF, for seriousness

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.

oh, so that's what good teaching is like

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. ((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.))

This may make another Saturday morning lecture bearable. May.