The final final exam is done. It was a 24 hour take-home exam for the second half of the International Law Process course. Other bloggers have been debating the relative merits of this kind of exam, at least compared to 3 hour in-class exams, 8 hour take-homes, and term papers. The one 8 hour take-home I've done in law school was hell. It required all 8 hours to do, and rapid sprinting to and from school to pick it up and turn it back in. (It also ruined my birthday, and, subsequently, my GPA...) At least with the 24 hour exam, while it may require 8 hours to complete as well, it also permits enough time to sleep (well, nap) and generally futz around while you get your head together.
But I think the key thing is variety. Too many take-homes would have been taxing and too many in-class ones would have been tedious. I lucked out pretty well this semester with my 5 classes: 2 in-class exams last week, nicely spread out, then plenty of time to do my paper for another class and then devote 24 hours to this last exam. Next semester doesn't look so good though: 4 of the 5 classes have in-class exams, two of them on consecutive days, and two of them on the same day.
My fifth class this semester didn't have an exam, but I need to finish up some other work for it from during the semester. I have until the 5th to do it. While it's nice I didn't have to cram it in while I was working on the finals for all the other classes, it means that today isn't quite the closure to my semester I would have liked it to be.
Nonetheless I met up with some friends and we went to a "celebratory" lunch at Friendly's, as is becoming our inadvertent tradition. I'm a sucker for Friendly's and always wished they had some in California. Good sundaes and decent food, although something went awry with today's salad as it seemed to have been served to me an ingredient at a time...
I am now officially a basket case, but hopefully the condition will be alleviated after a good night's sleep. It's been several days since I last had one. Hopefully the stomping won't be too loud tomorrow... And then I can get busy on everything else I still have to do.