As you may or may not be able to imagine, today is one of the worst days of my entire life. My reaction to failing the bar exam wasn't what I would consider typical for me--at all. It went down like this:
I hit EVERY red light on the way home from work. The text messages, email messages, facebook messages came flooding in and it caught me by surprise. It was 6:05 p.m. and I had not checked my results yet. In a way, I knew in my heart I did not pass.
My best friend finally arrived and I checked ...my name was not there. I just sat there. My BFF insisted on checking again. I told her that I really wanted to be alone. That was hard to say because I know she wanted to be there for me. No amount of consolation would help at this point and I know she felt helpless. She graciously left and checked in with me later. I cried a little but all in all very little tears have been shed. Normally, I am a huge cry baby but lately, it's just not in me. Maybe I am finally emotionally healthy and each event doesn't have to be a tragedy. That would be nice.
For the purposes of healing I am going to go through the sequence of events, as I remember them today, which I believe led to my demise.
Bar Study- The first few weeks were odd. Going back to Law school to study and attending barbri with my ex boyfriend felt wrong. Although him and I are on ok terms, I don't need to look at his face everyday. It's just not necessary. Then my ex boyfriend decided to be-friend one of my enemies. Those two loved throwing that in my face every chance they got. He is a disloyal guy. Not in the cheating sense but in the sense that he doesn't think there is anything wrong with being friends (very close) with a girl I hate. Whatever. They ended up driving each other crazy anyway because my ex is an acquired taste and not many can handle his type of neurosis.
For a good 4 weeks I struggled with finding a peaceful place to study---away from him. That was a waste of a lot of precious energy. Today him and I are far, far, away from each other. In fact, we are still in touch sometimes and I know he is taking the test a good 100 miles away from where I will go. And, I am getting a super amazing hotel room for the exam because this girl needs her
Then my second issue was renting a room. I did not have my own space. If I wanted to study at home, it was not an option. That bothered me a lot. Today I have a big beautiful apartment all to myself. Only problem is I have to work full time while studying this time. Good news about that is that I work much better under IMMENSE pressure.
The test...I never told anyone this because I was afraid to but now I have nothing to lose. The first day, the proctor called the one hour mark and I was already done with the first three essays. Up until he called time, I thought I was right on schedule. When I realized how early I was done, I was filled with terror. I tried, the best I could, to figure out what I missed and ended up just filling in each answer with nonsense. This backwards methodology MUST have compromised the integrity of the 'flow' of a coherent answer. Who knows what the final result ended up looking like. Somehow the afternoon session PT exam went so well (in my mind) that I forgot about the big huge problem with the morning essays.
Day two...I've explained this to several people and no one seems to quite get what I am saying. MBE day, I was under a hypnotic like trance. I literally was falling asleep. The proctor's probably became suspicious because I went to the bathroom at least 4 times to splash water on my face. I could not even see the questions because my eyes were so blurry and tired. Ironically, this guy that I spent some time with (classmate) during the exam breaks (pacing the parking lot for an hour) was SURE he failed. He was utterly defeated, to the point of wanting to quit after day one--PASSED. I won't lie I did feel a twinge of jealousy but he is a good man and him and his wife are expecting a baby soon so this is absolutely perfect. I wish him and his family a life full of love and happiness, they deserve it.
I don't have my score card yet, so all of this is speculation. When I get it I hope to be able to easily identify the issues. Please god let it be MBE's because those are by far the easiest thing to improve. If I bombed all essays, then I am in big trouble.
Bar Exam Review Phase Two begins Monday...Wish me luck and most importantly wish me peace. xoxo
Oh...ex boyfriend failed too and so did several very intelligent, capable people..I wish them all peace, love, and the energy to move forward.
2 comments:
I have heard many people don't pass the first time around. But now that you have an ideA of what didn't work for you last time you're more prepared this time. It's all about you and you will rock it this time.!
omg, i know EXACTLY what you mean about the MBE day. That happened to me on the LSAT! I woefully underperformed. I could not keep my eyes open, even though I was well rested. Everything was so blurry. The proctor had to have me correct the biographical info sheet twice, because I could not grasp what bubbles needed to be filled out. It was the strangest thing and ever since it happened, I have been terrified that it will happen again.
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