The Monkey Says Have Fun

Each day between now and the bar exam I am doing one "random" essay in addition to essays in whatever the subject of the day is. I wrote the name of each essay (i.e. CEWB Contracts 2) on flaschards and folded them up. Then I looked for something to put them in and draw them out of... you know, for an element of fun... Here's what I came up with:

I got it on me and hubby's honeymoon cruise last summer. The pure irony of a coconut monkey telling me to have fun right now is about as funny as it gets.

Well, not quite as funny as 'Rape Me'. But close.

Oh, and for those of you on the edge of your seats, I'm deciding to scale back the performance tests I had on the schedule. I'll do two more (instead of four more) plus reading through Honisberg's lecture material again. Tonight, I ended up outlining 4 more property essays that I had done before, but it had been long enough that I didn't remember them very well. I also wrote one out. I'm feeling decent on the property- essay-wise anyways. Then I outlined a contracts essay. And now I'm calling it a day.

Field Trip

I just finished my ambitious assignments for the day. I'm still feeling a bit rough on contracts though (56% on a set of 64 released questions- ouch) so I may do a little more review on that before bed.

But I took a break and went grocery shopping with husband. It was nice to see the outside world. Although, I officially don't care what I look like anymore since I wore the same sweaty workout clothes I've been wearing all day, my hair looks like crap because I just smooth it back into a ponytail instead of taking the time to find a brush, and make-up is so last year. I am wearing a law school t-shirt though, in hopes people will realize I must be studying for the bar because I would never appear like that in public otherwise.

Anyways, we bought the essentials. And by essentials I mean massive supplies of healthy snack foods that I can eat constantly throughout the day without gaining 10 pounds in two weeks. I bought the pre-sliced apples and as I was throwing them into the cart, my husband started to say "Why don't you just buy regular apples and slice them yourself?" The homocidal look on my face shut him up quickly though, and he instead suggested I buy two bags. I almost had a melt-down when they were out of my favorite peach yogurt and the brand of string cheese I like. But I coped by buying a big bag of popsicles.

I'll give you something to arbritrate

Grr...

Just outlined Contracts Essay #3 from the In-class workbook. It was a UCC question in which the acceptance included an aribtration clause that was not mentioned in the offer. So... under the UCC, a new term will become a part of the contract unless the offer limited acceptance, there was no objection, or it is a material obligation that affects the risks of the contract parties. Ok, we're good so far. But... Sakai's outline says that an arbitration clause "may not have materailly altered the contract." Am I going crazy or has every Barbri sample answer and every MBE on this topic said that an arbitration clause does materially alter the K and will therefore not be included? I know this is picky, because on test day I could just argue both sides or whatever. But the inconsistencies are annoying.

Also, this morning's confidence is shot after a pitiful set of 16 Contracts released MBEs- I only got 8 right. 50%! Yikes. So I decided to set the MBEs aside for a bit and do my essays first. Except for the above complaint, they're going alright. But just in general, the afternoon is a rough time for me. I just want to take a nap. But I cannot do that because 2pm is performance test time on the 24th and 26th and I will train my body to be up for it.

And we're off!

Today is Day 1 of bar prep minus the hand-holding of Barbri. I designed my Paced Program on steroids last night, made my official motivational bar exam soundtrack, and tidied up my house for the absolute last time before this is over. So here's the agenda for today:

• Go for a run and listen to my bar soundtrack to get motivated for the day.
• 70 released torts MBEs from Emanuel's Strategies and Tactics book
• Outline 2 Torts essays
• Simulate 1 Torts essay
• Put together my patented "Tort Attack Pack" which will basically consist of Sakai's outline, any Conviser flow charts that make sense to me, and a one pager of the most necessary memorized concepts.
• Lunch Break
• 64 released contracts MBEs from Emanuel's Strategies and Tactics book
• Outline 2 Contracts essays
• Simulate 1 contracts essay
• Put together a "Contracts Attack Pack"

This schedule will be pretty typical for the next two weeks. Most days will have either 2 of my stronger subjects or 1 weaker subject and a performance test. On days where I only cover one subject, I will do one 'random subject' essay. Once I get into the CA subjects next week, I'll do a mixed set of 50 MBEs each day. I'm also doing PMBR next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. So that's it. It's all printed out and pretty so I have to stick to it. Have a great day everyone! I'm sure I'll be checking in soon...

It's all relative

So I sat down to post and started to title this 'great day' and then realized how relative that phrase has really become.

The day started with 4 hours of Remedies with Conviser. All I kept thinking was SPEED IT UP- we already learned half that shit in contracts and torts. Also, Conviser really let me down. I expected more personality from the founder of Barbri. Now I see why Epstein makes fun of him. We also got back our Contracts essays today- failed on all except the rules. I was pretty sure of that one after I looked at the sample answer, but based on the grader's comments you would have thought I wrote on a completely different prompt. Her bright red pen crossed through many of my paragraphs, writing them off as 'NOT AN ISSUE'. Clearly, my understanding of how to write a passing essay is the real issue...

But I digress.... What made my day really great was that I got done with the paced program by 6pm which allowed me to spend the whole evening cleaning house and sorting through the massive stack of mail that I had been ignoring. Isn't that sad? But I relished the opportunity since I'm pretty sure it'll be the last time my house gets any attention again before the bar. Anyways, highlights from the stack of mail included a past due bill (yikes- I'm never past due on bills!) and a letter from PG&E notifying me of a scheduled outage in our area... oops. And now it's bedtime- at 11pm!!

So that's my new standard for a great day- and not even Conviser or Grader #602 could ruin it.

The Paced Program Made Me Do It

So today, me and the girl I sit by in Barbri realized that we both wore green shirts, and ate bananas on our first break. We agreed that it must have been on the Paced Program. Otherwise, why would we have done it? Then we started to talk about our sick devotion to the paced program- if it told us to jump off a cliff, would we? Probably... these Barbri people have years of experience in figuring out how to pass this thing, and apparently green shirts, bananas, and jumping off cliffs have something to do with it.

In other news, we finished Contracts today, thereby wrapping up the Big 6 subjects. Epstein was good- entertaining hypos that proved he is obsessed with armadillos, grits, and Sharon Stone. The highlight, however, was learning that Conviser is a person- the founder of Barbri to be exact. Shows what I know- I thought it was some fancy synonym for 'Summary' or something. I loved when Epstein pointed out that a buyer still has a duty to pay even if the subject matter of the contract is destroyed- after all there is still money left in the world... and Conviser has most of it. : )

Speaking of Conviser overcharging us for his services... was anyone else angered by the 'Evidence Update' email we received last night. Thanks Barbri- those corrections would have been super helpful BEFORE I spent the weekend memorizing what you'd told me before. Now I have to go back and figure out the differences. No worries, I'll do it in all the free time the paced program allows me. [insert sarcasm here]

Oh, and we survived another day without a bar prep rival gang riot in the hallways... ah well, we can always hope for tomorrow.

You're a heart-breacher

I've been going through the PMBR flashcards at work because work is boring and the flashcards are a lot less obvious than a big book... So I'm on contracts today and I find it funny that one of the contract types subject to the Statute of Frauds, is a marriage contract- specifically where a person promises consideration to another for the latter's promise to marry the former. Now, I remember reading a few cases in Family Law where people sued for broken engagements and what not and understand that a lot of common law is quite arcane, but what makes me laugh here is how hard PMBR tried to apply this rule to a modern situation in their example:

"A orally promised to give 1,000 shares of IBM stock to B, if she would marry him. B accepted A's offer. If A subsequently changed his mind and declined to marry B, A's promise to deliver the sotck would not be enforceable under the Statute of Frauds."

Seriously, was IBM stock really around in the days when these types of contracts were actually sued upon? SERIOUSLY?!?