the bar exam: postpartum...

okay, so it's been not-quite-a-week and i haven't written about the bar exam on this blog yet. so wtf's up with that?

well, the bar exam was an effing horrible experience. i have never in my life felt so utterly defeated as i did by the end of each of those days. the strange thing is that for the morning sessions on each day (tuesday was essay day, wednesday was multistate multiple choice day) i felt okay, as if maybe i wasn't totally acing the thing, but that i was gonna pass. but after the afternoon sessions on both days, i was convinced (am convinced?) that i'll be back in that cold cold cold (as in meat-locker-cold) convention center room in february to take the thing again.

the test really was terrible. i mean, who the hell knows the standard for a rule 59(a) motion? and nobody ever told us that we should be on the lookout for a billion multiple choice questions about jury instructions! it does calm my soul a bit that all of my friends seemed to feel just as defeated by the test. but it's just so frustrating that i'm not going to know the outcome until october! should i get rid of the barbri and PMBR books? should i trash my notes and my flashcards? or is it smarter if i just set them aside temporarily? how powerful is positive thinking? and is positive thinking completely futile at this point? because what's done is done.

sigh...

the strangest part of this, however, is the really pervasive depression that has set in since the bar exam has been over. i don't know what to do with myself. i haven't cleaned my apartment or done laundry (things that desperately need to be done and haven't been done very well in a long time), i've only made a cursory attempt to apply to jobs. these are things i can and should do. but i feel totally let down. maybe it would be different if i had felt that i kicked ass on the bar exam, but somehow i doubt it. i think this is bar exam postpartum. you spend three years with your life run by law school, then a summer with your life run by the bar exam, and then you just kinda tuck-and-roll and dust yourself off and realize you've got nothing. at all. to do.

ugh. i wish i had a job. i wish i didn't need a job. i wish i had become a gardener or a landscape architect or a seamstress.

sigh...