Review of Bar Review

13 hours of class down this week plus ~24 hours studying, 7 hours of class to go tomorrow. A Saturday! That is more class tomorrow than I had in a whole week in my last semester of law school. Sigh. Going part-time last semester was both a blessing and a curse.

I already am feeling drained from bar classes. It reminds me of the workload of the first year of law school, but without the countervailing excitement about the newness of everything and first-year idealism. But so it goes. I am going to try to keep my self-loathing to a minimum, especially here, because I know 1) I am still lucky to even be where I am, 2) everyone is going through it, 3) I hate incessant whining.

So here is a list of things that have kept me going this week and will probably help me the rest of the summer:

• The roommie. I am very lucky to have a roommate also taking the California bar. It is the buddy system. We keep each other going, we walk to class together, we keep each other accountable, we can vent to each other, we give each other looks when the BarBri lecturer says something stupid.
• Gym + West Wing every morning at 8am. Great way to start off the day.
• Snacks & Caffeine. The first day of our 1:45-5:45pm classes I almost fell asleep until I remembered I had pretzels in my bag. Every day since then I have packed fruit in my bag. The munching and natural sugars have kept me awake. And as much as I hate to do it, I am going back onto caffeine. 1 diet dr. pepper limit per day though. We made a costco run today to stock up.
  
• Family, boyfriend, and friends. Thanks for giving me space when I need it and talk to me about non-law stuff.
• 10pm TV programming. Housewives of NJ, Make Me a Supermodel, heck even NBA playoffs. Something to look forward to at night. The more mind-numbing, the better. We might break into our Gossip Girl Season 1 dvds soon.
• Cooking. The benefit of afternoon classes, thus far at least, has been that I get to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner at home instead of being at school all day. Making a meal is so therapeutic.
• My new bookshelf. It makes me feel grown-up and happy. It is part of my plan to make my apartment a grown-up apartment rather than a student one. It is already looking better.
  
• Graduation pictures on facebook. People should post more up so I can take a break and peruse them.
  

That is it for now. I promise I will try to mix up my posts so they are not all about studying for the bar.

Spellbound

The Scripps Spelling Bee is one of my favorite annual competitions I watch. In addition to loving to watch competitive things generally, I am captivated by all of the human elements. There are always the quirky and distinct personalities--complete nerds, class clowns, cocky kids, awkward home-schooled kids, nervous wrecks, eerily mature pre-teens, the unusually 'cool' kid who looks out of place, and the many students who fulfill ethnic stereotypes. And those are just the spellers. Their parents are equally as entertaining, from the overbearing to the ultra-supportive.

The little montages about how they study and about their other interests are also fascinating. And how cool would it be to be 12-13 years old, be on national television, and how your own little clip? Maybe that's why I also enjoy watching it so much. It celebrates student academic competitiors. While I may have played sports and spelled averagely, I rocked those math competitions. (seriously, what happened? I cannot even do arithmatic now) And going to those math competitoins, especially at the higher levels, exposed me to the same kind of personalities and rituals as it seems exists at the spelling bee.

After cutting two hours of my studying to watch the bee, I am hoping to find the same kind of discipline to study for the bar as those kids use to learn the etymology and spelling of all those words. Pictured above is this year's winner, Kavya Shivashankar (courtsey of WaPo). Poised, confident yet humble, and always smiling throughout the bee-- I want to be like her.

BarBri Bootcamp

"So you pay $3000+ to go sit in a classroom every day during the summer and watch a video?" Yes.

That is the same question I get from everyone who tries to understand what BarBri bar preparation classes are like. If it sounds ridiculous, it is. But it is what thousands of law school graduates across the country are doing, because there is no better way. Even those who have live classes are essentially watching a video, since no one is allowed to stop the lecturer for questions.

Staring at a big head, filling out our glossy blue workbooks. The whole experience is kind of surreal. To best describe what the experience has been like over the past two days, I have come up with some analogies:

Boot Camp- This is probably the most accurate description. This first week, we have to do these practice multiple choice questions. Why test us before they have taught us anything? To kill our "I just graduated from law school" egos. It is the whole military break you down so they can build us back up type of thing. Point out how little we know so we are scared into studying. Most of us did need a kick in the butt to get us out of summer coasting-mode. I guess it is also a way of acclimating ourselves with the testing format.

Big Brother- I wonder how people would react if they walked into a room and saw us all staring at a big talking head on the screen yelling (ok, not yelling, but speaking forcefully) about how BarBri is the only program that knows how the bar tests, that changes all their books when the bar changes, that knows all the tricks, and is the only program you need; everything else is a waste of time. And it is scary how well the indoctrination works. They give us a schedule, and we follow it exactly. I admit it; I am a sheep.

Rachael Ray- I have only watched a few different BarBri lecturers but most of them have the same exact presentation style, one very similar to the dreaded Rachael Ray. The fake excitement, the cutesy abbreviations and own lingo (or Spanglish), the over animation. On the bright-side, it keeps you awake for hours, if only because you are shaking your head at how ridiculous they sound. I guess it is better to err on the side of annoying than boring.

I am not meaning to bash BarBri. It is actually the opposite; I am really in awe of how disciplined their business model is. You have to give credit to any company who is able to maintain this kind of monopoly. (not meant to be a backhanded complimented, I am serious)

It has only been two days, but it seems effective and most of the methodologies seem to serve a purpose. No one would be paying this much money if they did not think it was at least semi-useful. I sure know I would not be studying as much if I did not have a schedule telling me exactly what to do and practice tests showing me how much I needed to work on. It is just an experience like no other. We will see what the rest of the summer is like.

KD is a J.D.

It is official. I am a law school graduate. It was a great weekend with so many of my family members who were able to make it out from California for a great, though a little too hot, sunny graduation weekend. What else can I say other than the ceremony was nice and brief, the speakers were good, and there were bagpipe players--I really liked the bagpipes. A perfect ending to a good three years.

Although my pictures are slowly going up on facebook and flickr, here are a few pictures from the weekend:

Andrew, Dad, Mom, me, Alex

My favorite girls

The whole gang. Immediately Family, Grandparents, Aunt, Uncle, Great Aunt, Great Uncle, and Alex.

I would write more, but the school was not lying when they said it was commencement. Two days after our graduation and it is already time to commence classes to study the bar. Off to review property.