Ranting

Bar studying has made me increasingly hostile. Writing this post, I am especially annoyed, because this has not been a good Barbri day. Just a word of caution. So if you don't want to read a rant, feel free to stop reading. I won't be offended. :)

So, today is the next to last day of Barbri class. They gave out the evaluations. They're going to hate my evaluation, because I was bitterly filling out during this whole ordeal. You can feel my annoyance reading the evaluation. But anyway, what happened today.

1. Got to class and the video wasn't working, so we were going to watch it on a little TV from the back corner of the room.

Apparently, our admin had been trying to make the tape work on the projector big screen (I am not good with terminology) for awhile before class started, but it wouldn't work, so we had to use a small TV and VCR. Part of the problem is the really bad quality of these tapes. The sound is awful, they skip a lot, etc. But as long as it was working, I could deal with it.

But there were 2 problems with it being on in the back of the room:

a) You needed a microphone, so the whole class could hear it; and
b) The idiots next door complained that they could hear it when we used the microphone

I say the idiots next door, not because I know that they're idiots, but because I'm annoyed with them. It's not another bar class. If so, I would be less hostile. It's a Law Preview class. No offense to those people who took Law Preview and thought it was important, but I'm sorry, it's not as important as a Barbri lecture. If these people are going to law school, they should already know the importance of the bar exam. Therefore, if you can hear it next door, stop coming by to complain. You've already been told we're having technical difficulties, you know we're studying for the bar, and you should realize that our needs are more important.

Your program still works over at Law Preview. So, you hear some other noises? So what. Get over it and move on. You miss a couple of words at Law Preview? You're probably back in the same place you were, even had you not taken the course. We miss parts of domestic relations? We're screwed on the essays. So, honestly, I don't really care what you think about our domestic relations lecture being loud.

But we tried to be nice so they wouldn't keep coming by to whine.

2. Stop the tape and get some guys to move the TV set to the front of the room.

It was better to have the TV in the front generally for acoustics, and luckily we had some strong guys who could move the whole system on the cart down through the lecture hall. But still, had to spend time doing that.

And listening to all the filler crap from the Barbri people. You want to tell us about the locations for the bar? Great. You want to tell us about the security and what we can bring in? Great. But you just gave us the latter in a packet. You also put it on the post-course Paced Program. We know we need to look at what's allowed in, and most likely we already have. We don't need 40 minutes of blabber about what to do about the bar exam. Especially when today's lecture goes for over 3 hours on its own. Why couldn't you add all the stupid filler to the conflicts lecture on Monday which didn't even last for 3 hours? Priorities.

Things were going fine on the baby TV, until the sound cut out right after the professor finished his introduction. Nothing.

3. We're going to do Fed Jur instead.

Since the tape hadn't worked on the projector thing, and now wasn't working on the small TV, we decided to do fed jur instead and demand a new tape from Barbri.

Only one problem with that... fed jur has a handout. Today's lecture did not. Therefore, all the people without computers had no handouts. And all the people who would normally bring their handout book, did not have the handout. (People like me who only bring things for the specific class - e.g. tearing out the relevant handout - are just screwed anyway.)

Some of the nice Northwestern kids volunteered to get it printed out so that we could do it. Sounds good. But printing enough copies was going to take 20 minutes. But did we have a choice? Long break time.

And during the break...

4. The tape finally works in the projector thing. Perfectly.

Only problem was that we were 5 minutes into the break, the people were printing, we couldn't find them all, half the class was gone, and no one knew what the heck was going on. And since they were doing all of us a favor because of Barbri's horrible tapes, we couldn't really start without them. The whole ordeal took about 20 more minutes before we could start going again.

So I worked on my evaluation. Bitterly. I complained about the tape quality, about how it was useless for tapes not to work, how being prepared is useless when the tape doesn't work and you have to watch something else. I complained about the grader I had who was patronizing and told me to learn the law.

And then I got to a most interesting question (paraphrased):
Would you recommend Barbri to your friends?

My answer: "Do I have a choice?"

OK. I didn't write that. Well, not that exactly. I answered yes, because there wasn't much choice if you wanted a course that covered both state and multistate subjects, especially if you weren't taking the course in NY. I think the underlying insinuation is quite clear. Yes, I would recommend it, only because people don't have a choice because you have a monopoly on the bar program. Considering the situation (domestic relations was 3 hours and we were 2 minutes into it and it was already 10:30 or so), I probably should have just written, "yeah, because they have no choice." :)

5. We watch the tape in the projector machine, but we can't finish it because the class is going to come in at 1:30 to kick us out.

We always end up having to start at 8:30 when there are long tapes because the 1:30 people come barging through the door. Today was no different. Because of all the technical problems, the tape isn't done and we have to leave. So we have to finish it tomorrow. At 8:30. Before a 3 hr and 30 minute tape of federal jurisdiction.

I'm especially annoyed because to celebrate the last day of Barbri, and take part in the very last fun activity before beginning "24/7 nothing but bar," I was going to go to a Cubs game. And now Alvin has to wait outside until I finally make it to Wrigley, because they won't get the tickets until tomorrow. And I feel bad making him stand there doing nothing because the Barbri tapes don't work. I can't even have my last fun activity for the full amount of time, huh, Barbri? Out to make me miserable?

OK, so I'm being melodramatic. I do that a lot. But I honestly am pretty annoyed with them. How hard is it to make tapes that work?

Phew. I feel better now. Ranting and venting is so therapeutic. And I knew I needed to do this in order to get my mind to be able to concentrate and not deal with their crap. Sorry if you read this whole thing and put up with the whole rant. Not a very pleasant post, I suppose. I really hope they take the evaluations as seriously as they said they would.