Day one of the bar is now done. I feel iffy about it, although perhaps that's a good sign since past results bore no logical relation to the degree of iffyness felt. Today had a torts essay (products liability, some negligence), a property essay (again with the landlord-tenant law???) and one on evidence that oddly enough hardly involved any of the California distinctions we had to torture ourselves learning. I didn't really struggle with the law so much on any of these, except maybe the evidence essay where I think I declared something admissible that isn't, but I think it will really come down to whether the bar examiners like the way I wrote my essays. Last time they apparently weren't too crazy about them, which was kind of disheartening because I'd IRAC'd myself silly. Yet when I looked at all the model essays in the BarBri practice essay book this time around, they weren't really IRAC'd so specifically. So I tried to do these essays this time more like the way the BarBri model answers looked. Will that pay off? The way things go, probably not (but if I can just hang in there and only slightly improve on the last exam performance that'll be enough).
I was kind of tired heading into the afternoon performance test (not entirely sure why, I didn't stay up that late last night...) but I guess it came out ok. Except I was having a hard time not being persuasive. It was a judge's memo, so I think I was supposed to generally be objective, but I quickly came to the opinion that the moving party was a dumbass, and it was hard to ignore (especially when I felt I could justify it - persuasively).
Then again, I spent most of the day with the really strong urge to use the word "dumbass" in an essay somewhere, which is somewhat unusual given that I rarely use it in my vocabulary. But I'm feeling kind of mercenary these days, and sometimes you just need to call a spade a spade. Or a dumbass, as the case may be.
(E.g., what would you call someone who fills a blender up to the top with scalding hot soup, turns it on high, and doesn't bother to hold the lid down? The answer apparently is "plaintiff.")
More MBE hijinx tomorrow, which I may or may not be prepared for. I feel like I did a lot of practice questions, although it's probably about the same amount as I've normally done. My scores on the drills were all over the place, although mostly in the "demoralizing" zone, but at this point I think I just need to be confident. I know a ton of rules; it's just parsing out the moronically-written questions that can be tough.
The whole bar exam is still hideously boring with ages and ages of down time, but this time there is an unexpected upside (well, two upsides if you also count that this room is carpeted and therefore much quieter). Because it turns out that instead of being here all by myself, I bumped into someone I know from Bucerius. Actually, I scarcely could have avoided her, because not only was she in Sacramento, in my test center... in my testing room... in my row... She's the person seated next to me! Thousands of people are taking this test, and I end up sitting next to someone I know. From Germany. How weird... But also nice, as it's someone to talk to during all the waiting. We're trying to exchange phone numbers so we can keep in touch afterwards, but since we're not allowed to bring paper in or out, we have to figure out how to do it without getting disbarred...