Bar Review: Studying in Style

When you have to study for the bar, you might as well have fun doing it. Luckily, I can study well with noise and distraction around me. I am studying in a bookstore/cafe with a live jazz band playing. The music is very study-friendly. It beats staying home and falling asleep on the sofa one more time. An added bonus: I just finished my first practice essay question and did pretty well. I feel relieved. I will have a lot more practice essay questions to do before it is all over, and I hope I continue to feel good about it.

Bar Review: Winding Down on Sessions

We are now just down to two more BarBri classes. I will actually miss it--not only does the winding down of BarBri signal the final countdown toward the bar exam, but I will miss seeing the people. I am worried about getting lonely while I study. I have talked with a few friends about this, and they feel the same, so we are going to try to get together to study during the last four weeks. Just studying separately, while together, would be good. Just the feeling that you are not alone.

One disconcerting thing today was that our subject was something I did not study in law school. I know most people run into this, and I am lucky that for me it is only this one instance. I could have taken the subject as an elective, but chose not to. I took another elective in an area of law in which I might want to practice someday. I guess I made the right decision. It is easier to study a few pages for a bar exam than to surmise whether a practice area may be something I want to do. I will just have to study extra hard in this area.

Bar Review: Feeling A Little Depressed

I am looking ahead to next week and am feeling a little depressed. It is not reallyl what you may think. Yes, I am depressed about the mountain of studying that is ahead of me and doesn't seem to get any easier. And yes, I am a little depressed that my practice test scores don't seem to get better. What I am really depressed about (except of course for the checks that bounced in my account this morning because I forgot to make a deposit yesterday) is that after next Tuesday, for a week, we will not have Barbri anymore. I have liked going to class, because that has put me in contact with others, and as I mentioned the other day, it feels as if we are one big team. Now I will be studying for a week on my own, and that seems very lonely. Then we have the 3-day PMBR test, which will be nice, but then two and a half weeks on my own. I am feeling very lonely and overwhelmed.

Shocking News About Amy Winehouse

I really don't know much about Amy Winehouse, but I have caught snippets of her music, and it is good. All I have heard about is her bizarre behavior, and about her being one of the "rehab sisters." The news came out yesterday or today that she has emphysema, and she is only 24! I did not realize that someone so young could get that. Like lung cancer, it seemed to me that that was a disease you got after abusing your body for a long time. (Of course, there are the nonsmoking kinds of lung cancer.) This is really so sad. Apparently, if she doesn't stop using drugs and smoking, she may have to go on oxygen. I hope she can pull herself together and take care of herself and stop using drugs. And that there is something they can do to reverse the symptoms, or that there will be something they can do sometime soon. She is too young to have to face these consequences, even if she did do it to herself.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5itjO64MOY5zSRXGQET71vAk5Cw1QD91FR6PO1

Bar Review: We're In It Together

I have to say I have been impressed with the people in my barbri review. We are all from different schools and different states, but everyone has been very friendly and helpful. That is a nice feeling. By the end of the process, we will have been around each other long enough that some of us will know new people, at least on some level. We will recognize some of their names on the "successful list" when it is posted in the fall. And we will be so happy for them (and hopefully for ourselves too!) It is a nice feeling--that we are in this together. Not quite what I thought it would be; I thought there would be more rivalry, but it is a very nice surprise that it doesn't feel that way.

Bar Review: MBE Simulated Test

We took the BarBri simulated MBE test yesterday. It was not fun. Of course the questions were hard, but what made it harder was the noisy person sitting fairly near me. Kept opening candy wrappers or something all day. I couldn't believe it. And it got worse as the day went on. No one cares if you eat during a regular class, because in a class there is regular noise. But during a test, everyone needs to be able to concentrate. I didn't do well. Got about half the questions right. Felt like a moron. How am I ever going to learn this mound of material? But today I found out that most people had about the same score as mine. Makes me feel like I am still in the game. It turned my whole attitude around today, thank goodness.

Missing My Journalism Roots

After hearing all of the Tim Russert stories on the news, I realize what a great guy he was. I guess I knew that before, but I never really paid attention to him. Not really. I guess I thought he would be around forever. Now I see all of the great qualities he had. One thing that strikes me is that he seemed to be in such a hurry. Maybe he knew instinctly he wouldn't live long. His passing has made me want to touch base with my journalism roots. I have started emailing people I haven't seen in a while. Even though I am looking forward to practicing law in some capacity, I miss journalism. The good part is the fields are not mutually exclusive. Hey, look at Tim Russert: He melded them.

Bar Review: Becoming a Multi-State Fanatic

I sit here writing on my blog, my fingers itching and dying to get back to the bar review. How I yearn to read the online multi-state questions, quickly and carefully choosing the right answer. How I get so excited to finish the quiz I have chosen and to push the button to see my results.......and to be disappointed once again. My scores are terrible. But then I look at the percentile from across the nation, and not too many people are doing very well. But many are doing better than me. I must, I must, I must improve my scores. Off to the front line once again.

Arrest in Marcia Trimble Case

Last Saturday the newspaper announced there was an arrest in the Marcia Trimble case. Anyone who has ever lived in Nashville for any time has probably heard of the murder of Marcia Trimble in 1975. She was a 9-year-old girl who was delivering Girl Scout cookies in her Green Hills neighborhood one evening and never returned. Her body was found on Easter Sunday, 33 days later, in a neighbor's garage. It has been said this was when Nashville lost its innocence. The murder touched and shocked everyone. Everyone who had sons of a certain age in the neighborhood were touched and frightened as these sons were questioned as to their wherabouts on that night. No leads ever amounted to anything.

The man arrested in the case is Jerome Barrett, the same man who was arrested recently in the murder of Sarah Sally Des Prez, a Vanderbilt student at the time, who was murdered about two weeks before Marcia. Both were in my sphere, but I didn't really know either of them. At the time, I don't remember anyone even connecting the crimes. One was an adult and one was a child--one was murdered near Vanderbilt campus and one near her Green Hills home, even though the Des Prez home was also in Green Hills. But now looking back, it would make sense to at least think of the possibility the two may have been committed by the same person. What is very peculiar, however, is that when the police searched the neighbor's garage previously, Marcia's body was not there, but 33 days later it was???? That is what has never made sense. Surely you would not miss something like that in a search.

But having the answer would bring some peace to these tragedies, even though it can never bring them back.

Bar Review: News Is Maybe Not So Dire

I have been answering my 50 duty MBE questions every night, and worried that I am not doing so well. On each test I score in the 50s, never over 62 percent. And that doesn't sound too good. But I heard today that if you make 68 percent on any of the practice tests, that would translate into 135 on the real scaled score and be enough to pass. Boy, that made my day! I need to pull my score up, but it doesn't seem as impossible as before I heard that news.

Tim Russert Death is Journalism's Loss

In this day of entertainment journalism, Tim Russert was a breath of fresh air. He was an old style journalist in the best of the meaning. He went after the hard stories, asked the hard questions, and didn't back off when there was a story. He did it with style. He was a calming influence amid chaos. And he was everywhere, seemingly on every story. He will be missed.

Bar Review: Con Law and the Second Amendment

Today we discussed constitutional law in the BarBri review. This was one of the last subjects I had in school, so the topic is still fresh on my mind. I have felt good, because so far, I have not felt totally lost in any subject in the review. Rightly so, you may think, but looking back over law school, there were plenty of times I was totally confused. Especially first year. Subjects like torts and contracts really threw me with all the legal twists and turns. But over the next three years, aspects of these areas crept into other areas of law and I guess took root. So now in bar review, it is not like I am starting over with torts and the other subjects. Thank goodness! I feel like I now understand these subjects, even though I have a lot of memorizing to do before the bar.

Today, we discussed the Bill of Rights and the amendments that have not been incorporated into the states through the 14th amendment. One of them is the 2nd amendment, the right to bear arms. This means that any state could decide to have gun control and it would be OK. That is good news to me. The case in D.C. right now may decide if it is incorporated. I hope it isn't, as we need some kind of gun control. The Supreme Court decision today on Gitmo gives me hope that this creeping conservative court will not lay aside legal principles to make right wingers happy.

Hard Core Sports Fans

I have to admit, I am not a hard core sports fan. Now, I do like some sports, but I don't really live and breathe them. Any water sports, volleyball, and things like the Olympics I really dig. One of my good friends is a died in the wool baseball fan. He follows all the teams, but actually travels as a fan with the local baseball team. Now that is devotion. I will have to tell him about a website I just discovered. My brother-in-law is a hard core sports enthusiast too. He does a lot of football picks. He would certainly enjoy discussing football and hockey and basketball with other forum members!

Bar Review: The Evidence is In: I am not Prepared

I still have seven and a half weeks until the bar exam, and thank goodness--I am nowhere prepared. I am working on online evidence questions this evening, and I am getting an alarming number wrong. The only good news is that I almost picked the right answer many times and then second guessed myself and picked the wrong answer. So at least on some of the questions, I am in the ball park. I really need to use the next couple of weeks wisely. And learn, learn, learn!

McClellan's Tell-All Book

I am so very interested in the book written by Scott McClellan, former press secretary for George Bush. It will be one of the first books I read after I finish the bar exam. It will be interesting to see what this insider said. I know conservatives are just saying he is a disgruntled employee. But so what if he is? It is still valuable information to know--that there was so much lying about the Iraq war, etc. That is not news for most of us, but I don't see how conservatives can deny it any longer.

Character and Fitness Exam Begins

Two of my references for the character and fitness exam told me today that they got the sheet from the investigating company, and that they would fill it out and return it tomorrow. It is actually beginning. Gulp. I know my references will be fine, but I am hoping the rest of it goes well. I am still worried about someone who went through it last year and told me they were "evil people." He never explained what he meant. But he is a lawyer now, so I guess it turned out OK.

Star Gazing

I am certainly a dabbler at life, which means that a lot of things appeal to me, at least in theory and sometimes I get to try them out and sometimes I don't. Astronomy always appealed to me, until I took it as an elective in college and had a teacher older than Mars himself. He made it no fun, believe me! But I still think that gazing at stars would be neat, even though I have not really done it myself much. In Nashville, there is the Dyer Observatory, which is often open to the public, and it is wonderful. They have a very powerful telescope there. There is also an area at Percy Warner Park, where people gather occasionally with their Telescopes, especially when there is a noted cosmic event happening. It always looks like fun when I drive by and see them.

Feeling Tired and Sluggish

The last couple of weeks I have been feeling tired and sluggish and was blaming it on a creeping feeling of depression that sometimes comes at me from work. Not the work per se, but the work environment. As brought on by sullen boss. Not always sullen, but enough of the time. And a lack of sleep from finishing up law school and starting the bar exam. Either of those may be enough to make one feel sluggish. But today it dawned on me that I haven't been eating right. It is obvious that I have put on 20-25 pounds, but even that hadn't made me feel as tired as I have the last couple of weeks. Since starting the bar review, I haven't had time to eat well. A doughnut in the morning, fast food at lunch, and whatever I can grab for dinner, which comes too late at night. I need to change my diet pronto. On the list for this weekend is grocery shopping for some healthy food.

UPS Numbers

I am trying to read a UPS tracking number, and it is so small, and so faint, and so hard to read, I am about to bust a gut! Why can't their printouts be legible? I need to put the number into their tracking tool on their website, and it is close to impossible to even see it! GRRRRRRRR!

Finally had to call the UPS customer service number and have them help me. He was able to tell me what it was, but only after I told him another tracking number (that I could see) that went out from our company the same day??? Their numbers on their printouts are like the old computer type....and it is faint. I need the tracking numbers to get paid on some jobs.

I wish they would replace those numbers or at least replace the ink in their printout machines!

Obama Gets It

Well, we can probably count on the fact that Obama is our nominee now. And that is fine with me. I would have supported either Hillary or Obama, but it does seem that with Hillary, everything is an uphill battle. I don't think that is her fault. People for some reason don't like her--I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that people still resent strong women. Or a lot of them do. I just don't see the arrogance in her that other people see. Or maybe the arrogance I see is just the arrogance that I see in all politicians. Well, Obama has appointed a committee to find his VP. I like that. It is very business like. And I like the fact that Caroline Kennedy is on it. I know that people are saying that Hillary could hurt Obama and make swing voters vote for McCain, which is sad but true. But they will have to weigh the cost of, with Hillary as VP, losing those swing votes as opposed to losing the votes that come with Hillary. I think a Clinton/Obama ticket would be very powerful. And I think anyone who would vote for McCain because of that is whacked.

Bar Review: Adjusting Strategy

I am already contemplating adjusting my bar review strategy. Hard as I try, I just cannot read all of the long outline for each subject every night before going to class. I usually get a third to half of each one read. Today I was asking some other people what to do. Ditch the long outlines for the shorter outline book, some said. Others just said know the material in the handout book front and back and do as many practice questions as possible.

This is so much like class! Best intentions to read everything and then life gets in the way and you have to start streamlining. I think starting tomorrow I will follow the advice about reading the short outline book. Hopefully, I can do that as well as everything else from that point on--except read all of the longer outlines, unless some huge blocks of time open up. Maybe I can start to do the practice questions over the weekend.

Bar Review: Wrongful Conception, Wrongful Birth

The one legal action I could never get my hands around in law school is the one for wrongful conception or wrongful birth. This is where a negligent tubal ligation or vasectomy, or a misfilled birth control prescription occurs, and a healthy child is thus born. And the parent sues.

We were reminded in bar review today that in such an action, you can get damages for medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, emotional distress, possible loss of consortium, and abortion costs, if that path is chosen.

But what about the child who grows up and finds out that his/her parent sued because they were born? I can't imagine the pain.

Biz Online Dating?

No, there is no such things as Biz Online Dating or Online Dating for Business Execs. Particularly for members of the same industry. At least, I don't think there is. Particularly for our old line industry. Funny thing happened yesterday. I got an email from another person on my online dating site saying that we matched up perfectly. Turns out that we line up better than even he thought. We are alumni of the same college even though he is five years older. And he is in the same industry and got into it in the same way I did! If I could go into detail about this for you, you would be amazed. Of course he has been doing this for a long time, and I am just starting. But the coincidence is amazing. I told him I just might have to pick his brain.

Bar Review: Trying to Catch Up in Bar Review

I spent a great deal of yesterday and today trying to catch up on the bar review. I have gone to every lecture so far, but have not read the material beforehand, at least not all of it. I feel as if I am in slow motion--I am reading the outlines slowly, but it is soaking in. That is great, because some of it didn't soak in the first time--when I studied it in class. For example, I am catching up on the crimes part of the bar review. I remember how confusing it was the first time around. Like the elements of conspiracy, and everything. It seemed so confusing, and I remember going to my final still not understanding everything about crimes and their elements. Now, I am understanding it. Is it just that four years of law school makes you smarter at this stuff, or was my teacher first year just not good at explaining it? Hmmmmm. At least, I am getting it now, even though I am behind.