F*CK YOU Bar Examiners - Part Deux

Yeah, so I feel very violated right now. Those fuckers.

They screwed around with us on Tuesday, but today they were just cruel. It's like they were kicking a sack of puppies or something.

I'll write more later, right now I'm gonna go cry myself to sleep.

F*CK YOU Bar Examiners

Yes, I hate you.

That is all.

D-Day

Well kids, it's time. Deep breaths and I'll see you later.

Emergency Shutdown

As you can see from the graph, the Harry Potter threat level has reached critical mass.

I'm going into seclusion for fear of opening my email and seeing a spoiler. I probably shouldn't be on the interenet anyway, you know because of that whole exam thing next week.

If I survive, I'll be back next week.

Huzzah

One week left before the big "UH OH".

I'm down to my last days of studying. I've saved the big topics for last - the ones that will be on the multiple choice and very likely to appear on the essays as well.

So today I reviewed criminal law / criminal procureds, commonly known as "crimes". I feel comfortable with it. It's just a matter of knowing the wording of the definitions.

I have been writing essays every day but have waited to do multiple choice questions. I just got done doing some "released questions".

Released questions are actual past bar exam multiple choice questions released by the national board. The questions are copyrighted, so Barbri is not allowed to use them. Instead, I've heard that they pay people to take the exam so that they can read the questions and then go back and try to copy them down as they remember them.

Then barbri changes the questions, so as to avoid copyright violations, and then uses them in their materials. But the Barbri questions are alot harder than the actual bar questions. The barbri lecturers even said this during class.

So I did 34 criminal law questions - I only missed FIVE. Fanfuckingtastic! I missed a good 12-13 on the sample exam I took two weeks ago. It is such an amazing confidence booster.

I am going to tear that fucking exam apart and eat it for breakfast. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not to mention I'm super giddy about Hairspray and Harry Potter coming out on Friday. I still haven't decided if I'm going to read the book. On the one hand, if I don't read it, there's a chance it might be spoiled for me. But on the other hand, if I do read it and I hate it, I might go into a catatonic depression.

What should I do?

Ha ha, It is to Laugh

This website cracked me up.

They Didn't Study

It's awesome, not only for the humor, but because that's what my exam answers might look like. The Barbri essay lecturer actually told us that if we don't know the answer we should MAKE UP THE LAW. Yes, he told us to make it up.

He said that last year or the year before, the highest grade in the Criminal Law essay applied the wrong law. They applied Tort principles instead of Criminal Law, but it was still the best essay.

How fucked up is that?
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I saw Harry Potter yesterday morning. I got there at 8:45 and there was already a line at the door because the theater hadn't opened yet. But it wasn't too crowded. It was funny though because everyone had fandango. I think one person bought their ticket at the window, and everyone else had fandango tickets. Damn you fandango.
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A woman that my mom works with knows someone that has Yorkie puppies for sale. And she lowered the price to $650. I think it's like a sign from Jeebus or something. He wants me to have a puppy.
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I went and had an allergy test today. It was a really weird experience.

For those that have not had the pleasure, let me explain. You lay on the table and the nurse puts little drops of the allergen on your back. They test for 55 allergens total. Then she takes a needle and pokes through the allergen into your skin. Then they let it sit for 20 minutes and see if there's an allergic reaction.

It turns out that I'm NOT allergic to the cats or dogs, which is good news. I am allergic to olive trees, russian olive trees, sagebrush (which I already knew), ragweed, and a few other kinds of trees. But not feathers, so I get to keep the nest on my bed. We have a lot of Russian Olive trees around the yard and then there's the sagebrush field next door. So that's probably what's causing my allergies to go crazy.

The doctor gave me a new kind of nasal spray. It's different from Flonase because it's an actual antihistamine. I'm going to give it a try. Not sure if I want to go to the allergy shot route just yet.

Pajama, what are your thoughts on allergy injections? He said there's an 80% chance of success in acquiring tolerance, but I'd have to go in 1-2 times a week for shots for many months. Seems very time consuming.

Two Weeks

You know that scene in Total Recall where Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to get into Mars and he's disguised as that fat woman. And when they ask how long he plans to stay, he says "two weeks" and then the head begins to malfunction and keeps repeating "Two weeks" but it gets long and drawn out "twoooooo weeeeeeeks".

Yeah, so anyway the exam is 2 weeks from today.

Barbri did a mock exam this past weekend. On Saturday we had 4 essays and a performance test and then on Sunday we did 200 multiple choice.

Let me say, it goes by a lot faster than I expected. The essays were self-graded and I think I did pretty well, considering I hadn't really started studying yet. And then on the multiple choice, I got 126 out of 200.

Surprisingly, that's a really good score. According to Barbri, the average is 105-110. And that's the "raw" score. They put it through some crazy math formula to get the "scaled" score, which barbri says adds about 10-15 points to your score. So I was pretty happy with that.

It's funny because I sucked really bad at contracts, which I expected, but then I was equally bad in everything else. Except for Property. They said that Property was the hardest subject on the multiple choice, but it was in fact my best subject. Haha, craziness.

In these final 2 weeks I have to memorize all the law and I plan to do a lot of essay writing. I'm not sure if I'll do much more multiple choice questions. It's only 1/3 of the score, so it doesn't make sense to waste time on it, especially now that I see how well I did even before studying.

There are 17 subjects that could possibly be tested on the essays and I think I have 13 days to study. So I have to double up and basically memorize one or more subjects a day.

This morning I memorized family law and I plan to memorize community property before i go to bed. So we're off to a good start.
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I really wanted to go to the midnight preview of Harry Potter tonight but can't get anyone to go with me. Plus I think it's sold out at the Summit Sierra. Or at least Fandango isn't selling anymore tickets.

There's a 9:30 show tomorrow at Parklane, so I think I'm gonna go see it. I don't know if I can wait until after the bar to see it. I think I've already committed to waiting to read the book until after the exam, but I just can't put off both. I'd go crazy.
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I had an appointment with an allergist today. My allergies have been killing me, my nose running to the point where its red and sore because of all the tissue.

But they didn't tell me that they can't do the test if I've taken an antihistamine. So I had taken alavert yesterday so he told me they couldn't do testing today. Of course, no one told me that when I made my appointment over a week ago.

So I'm going back on Thursday to do the test. Hopefully they'll figure out what I'm allergic to. None of the over the counter stuff has helped and my prescription for flonase doesn't do anything either. My mom thinks I might be allergic to the cats.
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I want a puppy. At first I wanted a corgi. But then I found out how much they shed. My mom's friend has one and I was over at her house and she let me hold it. When it jumped down...hair EVERYWHERE.

So now I want to get a Yorkie. We had a Yorkie before and I thought he was super adorable. But they're so damn expensive! Anyone know a reputable Yorkie breeder in the area? So far I've found one in Fallon who has male dogs starting at $700 and females at $1000.
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That is all, I'm gonna go back to memorizing and then try to crank out an essay or two.

I miss everyone! I feel so isolated, but I know if I try to make plans to go out, I'll feel super guilty about not studying.
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Oh! So I went to a new doctor a few weeks ago because my old primary care doctor was an asshole. The new doctor is wonderful!

I asked him if he could prescribe something that would help me sleep the nights before the exam because I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep otherwise.

But he said if I was going to take something, I should start taking it while I'm studying so that I don't have a weird reaction to it right before the exam. So he gave me a low dose prescription for Xanax. I must say it's really helped with the anxiety. I don't feel the impending sense of failure.

Yay for prescription medicine and the doctors that prescribe them!

More Quotes

Found a few more quotes written on random pieces of paper:

- Lay people have another word for this, they call it bullshit.

- That's right, another Friday evening without a date.

- Laywers are always wrong, but they're rich.

- You ever see a lawyer in the library? Get over it!

- Your'e alwys wrong in the law, but get the hell over it.

- They're testing whether you can speak english.

- They're not looking for fabulous, get over it.

- They're looking for sheep. You can be a goat and pass the NV bar exam. But we're looking for sheep. People who are munching their way through the meadon pass.

- Unless you're a speed freak or dropped some meth before starting the exam, you can't do both.

- They can only grade sheep.

3 Weeks

The bar exam is officially 3 weeks from today. I'm a little nervous, but I know I shouldn't be. I have nothing to worry about.

Tonight is our last barbri class. It's a shorter class called "final study strategies". I think she's going to tell us how to plan our last weeks or something.

Part of the exam is called the Multistate Performance Test. Basically, it's like getting a client file and having to write a memo. You know, because it wasn't good enough that we know the law in multiple choice and essay format.

So you get a packet that has a "library" with statutes and cases and a client "file" with notes from interviews, transcripts, reports. And you're supposed to read the library and client file and then write a memo. It's 90 minutes and it's a pain in the ass.

We had a workshop on it last night and we wrote out a full exam question during class. I managed to spot all the issues and my organization mirrored the sample answer, so I was really excited.

The only lame part is that the sample answers in the book they gave us were not student written. They were written by a committee of professors over a period of weeks, not 90 minutes. So they are way more in-depth than anything we could ever write on the exam, so it's difficult to gauge how we do by looking at the sample answer.

Now that I'm done with class, I'm going to start memorizing and keep doing the essays. The lecturer last night said that we should write one essay a day and I think that's very doable.


A few random quotes - can't remember which class they were from:

- I guess they didn't care if they kept our lawyers in NV

- You are lead counsel for Enron - YUCK

- As long as you're not handing out legal advice with the chunky monkey

- In the real world money is green, but your client's money is fuschia. And green and fuschia do not look good together (a lesson in not commingling client funds with your own).

- A lawyer is not a bus

- The laywer has a duty not to throw kittens out of car windows

- Reach down inside to that inner ethical child

- You have to be your own ugly self

- No mama, you keep the crack house