Last week, with 24 days to go until the bar, I radically changed my study strategy. I radically changed my review procedure. I also radically changed my outlook on Barbri. I'm not going to keep doing something if it's not working for me. And in my heart, with every angry little Asian sigh, I knew that the stupid Interactive Paced Program was not for me. Worse yet, I knew that listening to lectures was not for me. I have dyslexia of the hearing, if that's possible. Maybe it's more like autism. Maybe, after all this time, it turns out I'm autistic? That would be something.
I continued to listen to the lectures out of fear. Fear that they are going to say something equivalent to the Holy Grail and I'm going to miss it. Turns out, since I slept, worked out, baked and generally spaced out during the lectures, I missed it anyway! It's difficult to pick up on the tidbits of existence when one is asleep. So the first thing to go was pretending to listen to the lectures. The second thing to go was everyone's suggestion that I outline, then condense, then condense, then lather-rinse-repeat. Um. No. My typing is limited in duration. I'm not going to waste precious keystrokes on outlining. Third thing was NOT spending a whole day on a single subject, without really doing anything. Now that I look back on bar study, I had a lot of free time in the first 3 weeks. What was I doing that made me feel so overwhelmed? Certainly not what I'm doing now. I was pretty much not doing anything other than what they told me to do on Paced and it amounted to very very little retained. Very little retained. I vividly remember a lot of anger.
Oh, somewhere in between shedding my fear of the lecture and spending too long on one topic, I also learned to HATE the Conviser. It is stupid. It is useless. It was like stabbing bamboo splinters under my fingernails. Well, no, let me take back some. For topics like Contracts, it was useful. And for something else, hopefully. But for some topics? I would believe it if you told me that some 1L law student wrote it over the summer without understanding the topic.
And I made a delicious chocolate cake. Failed miserably on the frosting. Tried to make a milk chocolate ganache. Instead, I had a chocolate syrup/milk underneath a layer of milk chocolate ganache. It didn't detract from the cake (yes, I frosted it even though only the top half-inch solidified). It was a little bit runny. But still delicious. And yes, I have a tendency to sleep-walk, sleep-frost, and sleep-manicure/pedicure. Those are all things that I have done in my sleep. I wake up with a full set of pedicured toes. This morning I woke up to find that I had frosted the cake in my sleep. This cake was a traditional circular cake so unfortunately, I'm going to have to eat the whole thing. Maybe share with the parents.
Oh, back to the bar study switch-er-roo. I feel rewarded for switching my strategy because in one week, I raised my scores by 25%. Yes. I am golden on Criminal law and Evidence. GOLDEN. One short of Gold on Torts. Still suck at ConLaw and Real Property and Contracts. But. This is a definite upswing.
I will reward myself with going to sleep before 11pm. Time to start the winding down routine of hot foot soak, restorative yoga, reading Professional Responsibilities while TENS-ing my wrists. Did I mention I love my TENS machine? Love. I would not be able to get through this without it. I write my hands ragged during the day, electrocute them, and wake up freshly-nearly-without-soreness.
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