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.

Skittle Stress

I feel jittery today.

I woke up at 7. Just like I have for the last week or so. I'm usually a 'sleep 'til noon' type person if you let me (or if I ever had that kind of time). But not these days. I'm wide awake by 7, too stressed out to go back to sleep. So I got up, watched Good Morning America... realized that before bar prep I didn't even know they had a weekend edition... and went to church at 9 instead of 11 as usual. Friendly people at church usually relax my stress. But after church, I was still jittery.

Sitting here now past the five o' clock hour, I'm not sure where the day has gone exactly... I have reviewed crim law/procedure and simulated a crim essay. I have reviewed property and outlined a property/wills cross-over question. I have torn out the Sakai checklists for each of the subjects and reduced to notecards the basic outline for a few of the subjects where it made sense. But I still feel jittery.

Tomorrow is the full length written day, and I want to feel prepared for whatever they throw at me (don't tell me... I like surprises). And so I'm trying to make a final push towards a productive day. My husband went to a movie so I really have no excuses. So I called in the big guns... a fun size pack of skittles. This is serious stress and the only thing that can fix it is a fun size sugar rush.

Operation Paced Program Plus Deployed

That's right folks. The Paced Program just isn't cutting it this week, so based on my self-diagnosis, I'm adding to it. I feel surprisingly less stressed, having done more today.

I spent about an hour and a half reviewing community property and finishing my flaschards since this was entirely new subject to me. (Thank goodness I remember my parents' divorce or else it would all be completely foreign!) Then I spent an hour or so memorizing the flaschards I had made. Then I outlined the first two Community Property essays. I think I'm going to like the CP essays- very straightforward as long as you know the rules. This completed the Paced Program for today.

So here's my plus program:

• Essays: Per Sakai's instructions and my own assessment of weak essays, I am writing out one additional essay each day. I started today with Torts. Why? Because that was the first subject we covered so let's start at the very beginning... a very good place to start... Anyways, I did the one from the graded assignments workbook because the feedback is a lot better on these. Tell me again why they include an essay in this book from every subject if they have no intention on having us turn them in? I was surprised at how much I remembered. That's a good sign. Let's hope it's true of the other subjects.
• Evidence: I did a set of 17 evidence MBEs from the PMBR book. I got 65% right, but always at least had it narrowed down to 2. I just have to figure out how to pick the right one of those two...

So far, so good. Now, I just have to keep up this pace for three more weeks. Three weeks from TOMORROW to be exact!!!

Essay Aggravation

Time and time again the sample answers, the Barbri graders, and Mr. Sakai himself have reminded us to format our answers in exact order with the call of the question. So in a diligent effort to follow instrutions I just simulated Corporations Practice Essay #4 from the Essay Workbook. Here is the call of the question:

"To what relief is Pat entitled in the derivative action, and on what bases, and against which defendants. Discuss. Do not discuss federal or state securities law issues."

And so even though it made absolutely no sense to me, I organized my essay as follows:

• Pat's Relief in a Derivative Action
• Bases For Relief
• Parties Against whom Pat may Recover

And how does the sample answer organize the essay??

• Pat v. Carl
• Pat v. Motco's New Directors
• Pat v. Bigco

WHAT DO THEY WANT FROM ME????

On a happier sidenote, I absolutely made the right decision in skipping the Barbri MBE review today. I got a ton done and (in spite of this essay) am feeling very optimistic and relaxed.

Ready to rock the MBE

Started off today with the contracts essay for grading.... ugh. I tried really hard to be the master of the flying obvious that I thought they wanted me to be (i.e. going through the elements of a valid contract and mentioning that the statute of frauds was satisfied even when the facts state 'there was a valid written contract'). As it turns out, today they didn't want the obvious. If there's a such thing as 'over-issue-spotting', I am really really good at it. And then, I tried to organize the essay using "Armadillos from Texas play rap eating tacos" since the call of the question was pretty broad. Nope- apparently I was supposed to set out the plaintiff's rights, the plaintiff's remedies, and then the defendant's defenses... even if that format makes no logical sense in the context of the question. So in that vein, I am absolutely thrilled that after the MBE simulation tomorrow, we get a nice break from MBEs for a while so that I can focus on that elusive passing essay...

As far as the MBEs go, I'm feeling great. I scored 80% today on my set of 50. My overall weekend average was 72%, and each set got progressively better. I was super dedicated about reading the answers and explanations thoroughly, making flashcards for the concepts I didn't know, and then actually reviewing those flashcards. So I feel ready for tomorrow- 6 hours of testing, here I come.

TGIF

We got our first graded assignments back yesterday- a con law essay. I failed in all respects except as to the rules. I'm trying to look at this as glass half full situation. I KNOW THE RULES!!! Woo hoo! Now, I just have to figure out how to spot the issues so that I can apply those rules, analyze those rules, and say it all with style. No problem... Seriously though, everybody failed. Right? Anybody who didn't is lying. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself.

I'd also like to comment that I think Barbri sucks for worrying more about covering their own asses than helping us pass this damn thing. What I mean is this: of all the graded assignments we will be turning in, none- count them NONE- of them is in one of the new subjects. Except maybe civ pro... but I don't feel like going to get my paced program to confirm that. Regardless- I really do get the impression that they're trying to cover their asses to our detriment- just give us your best guess as to how they're going to test it- I won't hold it against you!

In better news, we've wrapped up the big 6 and have our MBE Simulation on Monday. This means the weekend assignments including approximately 4 kazillion MBEs. I did my first set of 50 tonight and scored 72%! Better yet, I timed myself and ended up with plenty of time leftover. I think I might actually slow myself down a bit- some of the questions I'm missing are really because I'm reading too fast and missing important facts. I'll try that on the 100 questions assigned for tomorrow- gag.

Until then, I'm actually DONE for tonight. Yes, you heard me right. I finished today's assignment at 8:30. I sort of don't know what to do with myself. So I went to the grocery store to stock up on the lean cuisines that are on sale this week (thanks Poobah). And now hubby and I are going to take his sports car (a suped up '93 Toyota MR2 for the car enthusiasts out there) out for a little cruise. Hopefully to somewhere that will serve me a wee bit of alcohol.

Oh yeah, my mom gave me a bar exam 'care package' full of goodies to get me through... she put it all in a gift bag that had Oscar the Grouch on it. I think she's trying to tell me something. You know... maybe he was misunderstood- he could have been studying for the bar exam too.

** Note to the anonymous commenter- the email update on Evidence was just pertaining to CA, so if you're not in Cali don't worry about it.

Good Things

Things are looking up. I thought the essay workshop today was actually really good. I'm actually a bit excited to get to work on the homework which includes outlining two more Con Law essays. I feel I had this 'duh' moment of 'oh, that's how I should organize an essay'. So that's one good thing.

Then, on the way home my husband called to tell me he had gotten off work early and was psyched at the prospect of spending the day perfecting a few songs on Guitar Hero. I got more than a little bitchy about how I needed to study, didn't want to go to the library, and couldn't concentrate with him playing Guitar Hero. How did husband respond? He greeted me at home with a dozen red roses, a kiss, and the news that he would be going to see a movie with a friend. Wow, I'm a lucky lucky girl.

Off to work...

Book Report

So I finished Mary Campbell Gallagher's book: "Scoring High on Bar Exam Essays".

Overall, I would give the book a B+. I definitely like her basic method of how to write an essay- she makes it sound so simple. One paragraph per applicable rule, each paragraph follows the same "Under, Here, Therefore" structure. It was a great overview of what to expect for essays before I have even reviewed any of the substantive material.

I only have a couple complaints... first is that Ms. Gallagher teaches classes for the NY bar and definitely shows a bias towards NY essays and a few other states. Of the 85 or so practice essays in the book, only a few of them were CA questions. But I guess I'll figure out how useful they are once I get more into the material. My second complaint is that it was a bit pricy ($49.95) for what you get.

Now on to learning wills & trusts (which I never took in law school) until my other books get here...