Back at It.

I was pretty much worthless all day Saturday, and it has been difficult getting back in the swing of things. When it comes to studying, if you give yourself an inch, you might take a mile. I certainly needed a break, but it became easy to rationalize more breaks as the weekend went on. I really had to struggle through writing essays yesterday. Plus it is getting very warm here, so it is getting harding to study.

I have a no class today, but I have essays to catch up on. I just finished 3 evidence essays which was so refreshing after commercial paper. It is nice to have a few subjects that I feel good at. If the exam was today, I am pretty sure I could pass whatever evidence question came along. That is one of the advantages of criminal law: you really learn evidence. Civil attorneys simply do not use the rules of evidence as often as in criminal law. This afternoon I have to write torts essays, and even though I kind of like torts (not committing them) I struggle with those questions. They are such a jumble of activity that I seem to miss torts that are going on. Anyway enough details. My brain appears to be back in business a little bit.

Brain Freeze

My brain finally gave out yesterday afternoon. It totally froze up and would not let me learn anything else. After 18 subjects in 5 weeks with 3 more subjects to go, I sat down to write my practice essays in commercial paper yesterday afternoon and try as I might, I simply could not get the rules to come into my brain. I was spent: too much information in too little time. I somehow slogged through 2 essays, but it was essentially a waist of time and I would have been better off trying to recover than persist in the futility. I am hoping I can muster enough energy to get through a few essays today and then take the rest of the day off to enjoy the nice weather we have and give my brain a rest. The cool morning breeze coming through the window to the study is just too delicious to sit here all day and there is no way I am going to get through another week without some time to recover.


(view out my study window of a beautiful morning)

Philosphy of Lawyering

For my professional responsibility class last semester, we had to turn in a personal philosophy of lawyer. We were allowed to make part of it a creative project (can you believe that in law school.) So instead of writing a 20 page paper, I applied one of my new hobbies to the problem and quilted a philosophy of lawyering quilt (pictured right.) It is only the second quilt I made, but I am pretty proud of it. I also turned in a short essay on my philosophy, which I have also attached. I wrote it in one night, so it does not really contain my deepest and clearest thoughts on the topic-even though I have been thinking about these ideas for a while-but if you are interested in reading: here it is.

Corporations

I hated learning corporations as much the second time as the first time. It was painful to spend the whole day writing corporation essays. Each time I start a new subject, I forget that the first couple of essays always suck, but with corporations, it was not until the 5th one where I started to feel like I knew what I was talking about, and considering I took a whole semester on business entities and did not remember anything, I don't have a lot of hope I will remember much of what I did today when I have to sit down again in week or so to write more. I actually find it easier to write on a subject that I never took the class in and just learned the basics in our 3 hour bar prep class. They say the bar exam is like a river that is an inch deep but a mile wide, so it is easier to have less depth in a subject than more. Once you learn the 15-30 basic rules for a subject, that is all you really need to know and be able to memorize them, spot them and write them out again on the essay. A whole semester of business entities left me more mostly confused (I somehow did half-way decent on the exam) than if I had just learned the rules in a single class as I did for secured transactions.

Anyway, time to get outside with the dogs.

A wall and the other side

I kind of hit a wall this week. I don't know if it is the constant onslaught of new subjects or the relentless pace of essay writing, but yesterday evening I wrote one professional responsibility essay and I simply could not do any more. My brain was just full and I couldn't take it. Luckily S, having taken and passed the bar, understands these things and took me out for Mexican food and a margarita.

I also visited my old (not so old, but it seems like I have been studying for the bar for ages) office this week, which left me with mixed emotions. On the one hand I feel totally left out of life and I missed work a lot when I heard about the interesting cases that the lawyers were working on. It took me until today to let that feeling inspire me to get over this wall that i have run into and remember why I am doing this: because I want to be a lawyer.

That said, I got all my essays done for today, so it is time for a break.

bar

Whereas the first week of bar prep was all about getting organized and the second week was all about getting a rythem, last week was all about getting exhausted with bar prep. A lot of people were like me and found time for themselves last weekend, because even though it has only been three weeks it seems like ages since I have had extra time for myself. Now though it is time to grind through the rest of the review class. We are getting exhausted into some subjects now in which I have not taken the class: wills,trusts, secured transactions. Why cant there be more criminal procedure?

Time for studying and selfishness

S, who took the bar two years ago, said to me last night that during the bar you have a little more freedom to be selfish than one normally has. I notice the other students at school are all walking a with a little bit more focus and occasionally someone you knew well from classes will pass you without even noticing that you are there: usually on their way to or from Starbucks during our Bar class breaks. As much as studying for the bar is tedious, boring, and draining, there is something kind of nice about having such a singular focus. I feel like I have a purpose when I get up in the morning. Almost every hour of my day is planned out either as study or scheduled relaxation, eating, or exercising time. I don't really spend too much time thinking about anything else except the bar (and a little bit of wedding preparation here and there.) I have to admit, I have not been this focused in all of lawschool, maybe even my whole life, and it carries over into other areas. I have been amazingly good about getting the dishes done and my desk is cleaner than it has been in years. It must be that fitting such vast amounts of information into one's head requires a very systematic process and it just seems easier to plug away and keep everything organized than to let it fall apart. Then again, it is hard to tell what is going on outside my own head.

If I have to compare it, it kind of reminds me of when I first moved to Germany and was in a 6 week intensive German class. We had class in the morning and then we studied in the afternoon. I did a lot less studying then and a lot more drinking, but I was fresh in the country and I was fully absorbed in learning the language during most of the day, especially when drinking. It also kind of reminds me of being on swim team in high school. The first couple of days of the season were always kind of painful, but then every day you get a bit stronger and you can swim harder and stronger. We would always peak a week or two before the biggest swim meet (usually State) and then taper off so that we were relaxed and not exhausted when the big day came. I wonder if that is a good strategy for the bar as well.

We had this really annoying public defender speak in our professional responsibility class, but one story he told I found, well, it was something that stuck with me. He was describing some clients of his, big drug dealers, and they had told him how they prepared for big drug deals (meetings with lots of guys with guns and cash.) He explained what his client had said that he would get wherever he was going a day early then he would work out and relax the whole day before the deal and go to bed early.

I have a long way to go before I need to plan for the few days before the exam, but I might keep that in mind. For now it is the long schlog of class, commute, outline, practice essay, practice, essay, practice essay, then start all over again with a new subject.