The CA bar

It's been a while since I've posted.

The CA bar itself was from July 26-28. It was an intense few days. Friends of mine stayed at a hotel right across the street from the Sacramento Convention Center, but I didn't want to spend the money, so I drove every day. It was not bad, though it was inconvenient driving, parking each morning, then walking to the convention center.

The structure of the bar is as follows:
the first day:
Morning: 3 essays, 1 hour each, on any of the subjects (CA and/or federal)
Afternoon: a "Performance Test"--a 3 hour block of time to read instructions, figure out what to write, and write it

the second day:
Morning: 100 multiple choice questions, with 3 hours to do them, covering the multistate subjects
Afternoon: more of the same

the third day:
just like the first day

Almost everyone I talked to thought the first day's morning essays were really hard. Hard to figure out what they were asking, what area of law they were testing, what to write. During the lunch break of the third day, a few of us were watching tv in a hotel room. We saw the scene in the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" where a military helicopter gets caught in a draft of cold air, and crashes to the ground. The crew survives the crash, and start moving to get out of the helicopter, but then the cold air freezes them.

A friend commented: that's what I felt like that first day--crash, then oh, maybe we've survived, but then, no, it's all over. All of us in the room started laughing.

I honestly don't know how I did. I certainly could have done a whole lot better. I wish I'd done more practice essays to train myself to think and write quickly. For the short essays on the first and third days, I felt I'd written too slowly and left out a number of things as a result. The multiple choice went well, I thought.

So, I won't be surprised either way, whether I pass or fail. But if I do fail, it's going to be a big downer, since I'll have to go through the whole deal of studying for the Feb test, and this time without the experience of going through it with other people.

It helps a lot to go through intense experiences like these with others. Helps keep you motivated, and keeps you from feeling like you're the only loser. We'll see.