Testing Tribulations Part Two
Another fifteen pages of typing down, though this time in a mere three hours, and I am done with my second law school final. If my first final was a 9 hour marathon, this test would be more like a gauntlet. There were just questions thrown at us from left and right and you had to keep your concentration to make it to the end. Essentially we had to answer 11 questions, each with many subparts, in 3 hours. Some of the questions may have seemed weird at first and it would be easy to get thrown off and panic. But you just keep going and sometimes the answer does come to you (as it hopefully did for the last question where I had my ephiphany with 15 minutes left to crank it out).
Although this was my second test, it was my first in-class examination. How different it was from my undergraduate finals that were in class. Here everyone had piles of books, handouts, supplements, and of course our cherished outlines, surrounding our computers. A significant amount of people had ear plugs, all of different colors which cutely poked out of their ears (I had a pair of bright orange ones but I decided not to use them because I can hear myself breathe and they make me feel like I'm underwater). And some people even came prepared with little bottles of wine and hard liquor in their bags for after the test. It was quite amusing.
And of course taking my class with my classmates, I was surrounded by people freaking out before and after the test. I think the only time I've been surrounded by so many people on edge was at the LSAT (notice, future law school students, we're a special neurotic breed). There were definitely people at the verge of breakdowns yesterday and it was difficult to know what to say to them other than "it's going to be alright." People getting physically ill and throwing up before the test, people whose eyes were red from crying, people making phone calls telling their parents they might drop out of law school. And if you weren't having a breakdown, you had to avoid being shaken by the people who had already lost it. I'm very grateful that my roommate and most of my friends around me were also calm and I think we all helped each other stay in the zone.
I just hope that everyone is doing better now because there is still one (or two for some people) final left in this mind game known as long school. I know I'm ready to finish this week out and I'm so excited to go home and see everyone. Having things to look forward too has definitely helped my peace of mind. Finals week has taught me more than ever that this whole law school experience is equally about mental strength and endurance as it is about intelligence.
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