The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

Yesterday I had to switch rooms at the hotel. On checking in I had asked for a quiet room. I suppose they thought a room away from the highway would be considered quiet. I suppose they might have been right, had the generic-looking building across the driveway not been a nightclub that played pulsating music all night.

And speaking of hotels, I wonder whose bright idea it was to send out a squadron of representatives from the Sacramento Visitors Bureau (or something like that) to meet us on the stairs of the convention center as soon as we arrived on the first morning to quiz us on our choice of hostelry during the exam. Glazed, semi-panicked looks hardly dissuaded them as they persisted in their appointed inquiry, because of course there's nothing any bar exam candidate would like better to do first thing in the morning on the first day of the most important test of their lives than answer a marketing survey.

Anyway, the room switch has seemed to work out, and I got a decent night's sleep. I got up early and started reviewing for the day's upcoming MBE, mostly by reviewing about 80 questions' worth of answers in one of my PMBR books. I dislike the PMBR books because they don't always explain why other choices are wrong, but I like them better than the BarBri books in that their explanations seem to capture the demonic logic of the National Council of Bar Examiners more faithfully. But I was having trouble paying attention, because I kept remembering everything I forgot to include in the previous day's essays and performance test. It's very demoralizing, realizing how many points I left on the table. Especially since I went to some effort to not have that happen, and as past results indicate, I need every point I can get.

Today's MBE hasn't made me more cheerful about my prospects. I'm know that by even mentioning it I'm risking the National Council of Bar Examiners smiting my firstborn, as they threaten to do in the rather overreaching adhesion contract on the front of the test booklets (ok, that's a slight exaggeration, but since when did cancellation of exam scores or professional discipline become a remedy for copyright infringement?), but that was a crummy six hours. I had an enormous headache all through it (still do), and there were all sorts of questions on there covering rules I've never even seen on any outline, plus what seemed like dozens of niggling, repetitive questions on every area I was weak on.

But maybe I'm being overly concerned. Maybe I shouldn't worry so much. After all, as my fortune cookie at lunch told me, "You do not have to worry about your future."