Monday Recap

Monday, Monday, Monday. The last day before I officially encountered the bar exam. I remember a lot less about what actually happened, but a lot about how it felt in the hours leading up to the Big Day.

I think I ended up staying up kind of late on Sunday trying to get some studying done, and woke up later than I planned on Monday. But I don't really remember. Anything on Monday before I left for the city is kind of hazy.

Got into the city around 4 and headed for the apartment where I was going to be staying for the duration. My mom came with me to make things easier as far as transporting all my stuff for the exam and getting me to Jersey, so thankfully those were details I didn't have to worry about. Walking with my backpack stuck to me, it was so hot and so humid outside, and all I wanted to do was jump into a swimming pool.

The late afternoon and evening went by really quickly. Picked up a footlong sandwich for breakfast the next morning. (One of my big dilemmas was what to eat so that I wouldn't be hungry during the exam, because I'm always hungry a couple of hours after breakfast. I had planned on microwave dinners, but the apartment didn't have a microwave, so ended up going with a sandwich. It worked.) Checked out the test site and scoped out some places for lunch. Had a turkey burger with side salad at ESPN Zone, and then headed back to get ready for the big day.

I know everyone says you're not supposed to review the day or night before the test, but since my exam style has always been to cram, I didn't think it would be too detrimental. I didn't do anything too intense, just scanned over some of the essay rules I had written and recited the NY Practice rules as if I were on the elliptical machine (how I memorized them). Took a nice relaxing shower and then tried to go to sleep.

Tried to fall asleep for awhile. I figured some of it was probably nervous jitters from the exam being the next day, but I was really exhausted so I didn't take a sleeping pill, thinking I could naturally fall asleep easily. I can usually fall asleep to the TV and with some lights on, but it wasn't working this time.

Once the lights were finally out and the TV was on really low, I think I finally fell asleep. But I woke up at about 2:30 in the morning, thinking that it was time to get up for the test. I was so sure that my alarm was going to go off any minute, until I grabbed my phone and realized that there were still over 3 hours to go. I think part of me really just wanted the whole thing over with right then and there. All this studying, let's just get it started already!

I was a whole mix of feelings the day before the exam. There was the part of me that was impatient, just wanting to take on the test already after all the days and days of studying. There was the part of me that was apprehensive, kind of nervous, about what I'd be facing the next day. And then there was the part of me that was saying, "It's here. It's really, really here," in sort of a state of disbelief. Even with whatever nervous energy I had, I was pretty calm with regards to the test. There was nothing more I could do on Monday as far as learning anything, and nothing I could do to change the past and how much I had studied in the past. I was just going to have to hope that the essay subjects clicked with me, because so much of the process is just pure luck.

And with that, my last (rather uneventful) day before officially becoming a bar taker ended. Not much actually happening, just sort of a bridge day between studying and test-taking. And I'm realizing this entry was pretty useless - why bother talking about Monday when nothing really happened? But since I actually started this entry about 4 days ago when I started writing about the bar, I figured I might as well finish what I started.

Wednesday was more exciting, I promise. Probably should have read that one instead. :)

(Entry completed 8/4/05, 12:51 am)