Day 17 - Captivity!

Just returned from the cinema where I caught Captivity. Fairly shite film but could really draw comparisons and see the parallels to my own life at the moment - kept in a room, tortured by revision and stress... ok she wasn't being tortured by revision but you get my point!

What seems absolutely crazy to me is how tomorrow is JULY - i KNOW it's only the one day closer to the exam but it seems a month closer - now I can no longer say 'next month' because it is quite definitely going to be 'this month.' On the positive side - I guess we are now into the final stretch - time to pull out all the stops and head for the finish line post haste!

(On that note - I reaaally didn't get too much done today - managed Trusts lectures but that was it - from tomorrow gonna get back down to it!)

Day 16 - 17 Concepts of Wills!

Dammit - why didn't I do this tomorrow or start working one day earlier so today culd have been day 17! lol. Listened to the Wills lectures - seems alright - whenever he mentioned an area that was majorly tested he then went on to say that it was actually quite simple (and it was, fairly) so that's always a good sign!

Really starting to just want to finish the substantive law so I can get onto learning those 'boiler plate' thingys, reviewing everything, doing essays and just feeling like I've covered everything at least ONCE!

Day 15 - MPT day!

Ok so got up and tried to get on with this MPT that they say you should do after MPT workshop 1. SOO hard to get into it - always seems so boring as much as I tell myself that it is NOT waste of time and it IS VERY relevant. Gave up after spending about 90 mins ish on outlining and moved on to listen to MPT workshop 2 - apparently if I would have written it I would have got around 65% cus I outlined it right but most of the stuff I was going to write was probably shite. Am going to FORCE myself to just sit and do the whole thing as soon as I can but at this stage where kinda freaking that have forgotten some of the early stuff I looked at - focus lies slightly elsewhere. Listening to second MPT workshop now anyway - seems interesting! The outlining thing helped anyway cus i realised that you DO need the whole time to do the outlining and need to work slightly faster...

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Edit - later (around 11pm) decided to tackle that 2nd MPT - the re Sunrise Galleria Mall one. Took the full 3 hours and feeling better about it now. Pretty certain i probably did it wrong though cus that whole 'drafting a policy' thing screwed with my mind - on the one hand you are kinda thinking - I need to be like tha sheep! lol and on the other you are thinking - but there's nothing else in the facts that I can use to just MAKE some stupid ordinance! Whatever - onto real law stuff again tomorrow - starting Wills :oS

Day 14 - MBE Practice Exam

Did AM session 9am - 12pm, then watched House and had something to eat before doing the PM session 1.30pm - 4pm (kinda finished early on that 2nd session - had finished and was bored!).

Have remembered the way I sorted out the time on MBE exam for NY that worked really well - basically making sure you do 25 q's in 45 minutes. Splits the exam into 4 manageable chunks, means you have more idea of how you are doing for time and means, if you are reasonably quick, you can either have quick 2-3 minute break every 45 minutes or save it up and use it all at the end! I remember that I told a coupla people i did the NY one with about it and they said they used it and found it worked really well.

Exam wise - my mark is slightly inflated I think because i did pretty much the same MBE practice exam last year before NY bar exam - however I really don't remember the questions conciously and now and then when I vaguely recall something it seems annoying because I don't know whether I am remembering the answer I gave before or the right answer or even a wrong answer that I read about after doing the exam! Whatever... apparently the actual MBE will be easier so I guess that's a good sign... just checked and got 136 last time

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MBE Practice Exam - (140/200)

Day 13 - Catching Up

As didn't do a huge amount on monday - today was catch up day! Managed to do quite a bit actually - listened to essay workshop 1 (well most of it - got bored and skipped through a lot of it), then did a load of MCQ's and 3 essays followed by brief review of MBE subjects. Starting to feel like I've forgotten stuff i did at FIRST
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MCQ's done - Tort Int 38-74 (21/37)
Tort Adv 1-35 - (20/35)
Real Property Adv 1-35 (19/35)

Day 12 - last day of 'work'

After studying till late last night - REALLY didnt want to goto work this morning on what is apparently the wettest day of the year here in England (and I heard somewhere - wettest day in 50 years?!?) Just can't get inspired on getting back from work really but doing tort mcq's now so can reduce the strain of workload tomorrow. Got my practice MBE day after tomorrow too!

LOL - love the effort that seems to go into the fact patterns on some of these MCQs (yes - i know I am sad to like the fact patterns! lol). Prime Example: "Cisneros raised his middle finger in the timeworn salute of the impotently angry and shouted a few well-chosen references to LeBeau's anatomy and ancestry." (Tort MCQ Q16 Int). Gotta love it! :)
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MCQ's done - Torts Int 1-37 (25/37)

Day 11 - One Month Left

Wow - it has rolled around fast - this time next month will be doing Day 1 of exam! Crazy stuff! Went to meet mate today for lunch, nice shortish break - I HAD scheduled for it in advance. Got home and did some remedies lectures - seemed quite useful - i like the fact that, in a way, it's a review of Contract/tort/Real property as opposed to an entirely new subject. When it comes to injunctions/equitable remedies though I prefer my neumonic:
- Equitable remedies are BERPed into existence (Balance of hardships, Enforceable, no Remedy at law, Protectible property interest).
- (this one is COOLER) - equitable remedies are killed by the FLU! (Freedom of speech, Laches, Unclean Hands).

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MCQ's done - Contracts Adv 1-36 (23/36)

Day 10 - Henry NOOO!

I know I know - I shouldn't be worrying about football when a HEWGE exam is fast approaching and i now literally have one month left until it HAPPENS. Problem is - I care about FOOTBALL! lol - last night found out that Thierry Henry, arguably Arsenal's best player (top goalscorer of all time) is leaving us to goto Barcelona for only 16 million pounds. Crazy seeing as we were offered 30 million last year! Went through the various stages - denial, anger... etc and think I am finally now reaching general acceptance - hopefully Arsenal will sign Babel from Ajax (referred to by some as 'the next Henry') and hopefully this will all work out in the end. It's hard to just ignore it all though - he has been with the club for 8 years!

Anyways - back to Calibarland - haven't managed a huge amount today yet and not going to write much more on here cus trying to maintain momentum with short breaks but done 74 Contract MCQ's (Int). Some of those questions are reaaaally long and boring! Most of it seems to be coming back to me though so that's a good sign. Ok off now - may start Tort law tonight! :)

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MCQ's done - Contract Int MCQ 1-41 (22/41)
Contract Int MCQ 42-74 (23/33)

Day 9 - Corporations

Just done/finished lectures on Corporations law - crazy stuff! Was following it all the way until after the fundamental corporate changes bit - that last coupla bits reaaally lost me - and apparently its big on California! Shit!

Day 8 - Hypo Land

Pretty much been living in 'hypo' land all day - with states such as Texlahoma, Wisconsota, West Dakota and countries such as North Koraq! Imagine North Koraq for a minute - that would be an enemy and a half!!

Time to head back to tackle essays/maybe START contract law

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MCQ's done today - Int Evidence 1-74 (52/74)
Adv Constitutional - 1-35 (19/35)

Day 7 - Truth In Evidence?

Ok back on track today - didn't get a huge amount done early in morning but I think it's about time I admit to myself something - I am NOT a morning person! lol - I can sometimes do VERY early morning - say 5/6/7ish but as soon as people are up - I lose interest - dunno why - seems a little crazy!

So what did I manage today? Outlined a few essays, did one Criminal essay pretty much fully (went completely off on the wrong track regarding one issue) - I always seem to get SOMETHING out of an actual essay writing session but it's soooo tempting just to outline it cus then you can grab the substantive trivia and squirrel it away thinking - if only that question comes up on the exam!!

I then spent a while on Evidence - just annotating spider diagrams i done on the federal/MBE stuff with Cali exceptions - anyone out there heard that this exception Evidence stuff has changed majorly very recently?! I'm sticking with my Truth in Evidence... although whether i can actually find any truth in evidence is another matter!

Did a MCQ - did shit (thought I had got Constitutional law sorted! grrr) and did MDR - did okish.
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MCQ's done - Constitutional law Int 36-77 (18/39)
Evidence MDR (11/17)

Day 6 - Flipping Out

Ok today started... well shit! Got up and tried to get on but reaally tired for some reason... kept trying at evidence and listened to first 2 hours of lectures then decided not to bother with rest of evidence lectures - I got the federal stuff already in notes from last time - it's only the Cali distinctions i particularly need and i KINDA got them in the outline - just highlighted them! Tried to keep going at that, then tried an essay then kinda flipped out - moved the whole room around, got a beer, sat and started re-watching 25th hour followed by simpsons. Hmmm - strange no? After I woke up from a slumber I fell into following simpsons still felt kinda screwed but began gradually to sort room out again and move shit away - seem to have lost the pen i work with though lol. Ok time to try and get back to it I'm guessing - always gotta have at least one flip out! :) More dramatic in previous years though - running off up the hill and lying in the long wet grass for a while in the early hours of the morning - that was a fun one! Other ones have just been walking off to a pub for few shots of intoxicating liquors then returning to it all. This one was mild really lol.
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Update - finally found pen among bottles of rum, absinth and JD - yay! lol - never really got on properly today - watched first coupla episodes of the Shield instead then later did one load of MCQ's - shite mark but i'm happy as long as over 50% generally. Hopefully do more tomorrow now I had a break of some kind...
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MCQ's today - Int Constitutional 1-35 (21/35)

Day 5 - Studying meets work...

Penultimate day of 'work' work today - work next monday then that's it until after exam!! Took a card with neumonic devices on it so, between customers, I was reading over it and trying to remember what each meant - limited usefulness but whatever! Although not really a BREAK as such - working kinda took my mind off studying for a bit so was probably good!

Got home and started the first performance test lecture - seems quite useful overall particularly the idea that 1 in 6 of the essays will be testing on something not covered by barbri - SO TRUE!! When I did the New York bar exam - suddenly came across a question going into detail about abortion/custody or something which I had done absolute jack shit about - actually almost felt like breaking down in the middle of the exam - I'd spent all that money, studied for weeks, flown out there and now I was gonna completely flunk the exam! Somehow I kept myself from walking out and just got on with the question - made up some crazy rule with 3 parts and applied them all to the facts in the question - dunno how I did on that one but passed the bar exam overall so obviously was right to STAY in the exam! lol.

Just got another coupla hours of this lecture to do now - lol @ 'everyone passes the bar exam' - yeah right!! Really not looking forward to Evidence tomorrow - gonna actually have to listen to lectures I think cus of the Cali distinctions but it looks like it's gonna be one of those where no one has any clue in what way it will be tested... we shall see!

Day 4

Was wanting to get up pretty early this morning but kinda failed and with the prospect of (Scheuled) doing 74 odd Real Property MCQ's - ugh that sucked! Really crazy long, boring fact patterns and then I sit there and have no idea what the hell the answer should be! Struggled on with it though somehow and finished that, went through it and did coupla RP essays before 6. Then did bit of Constitutional law (which was supposed to be focus for the day!) - MDR and essay - feel better about that but then I guess RP is supposed to be the hardest one there is on the MBE??

Feeling the onset of a cold - all I fuckin need - got work tomorrow then proper scary Evidence on Tuesday so a cold at this time would not be good!

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MCQ's taken - RP Int 1-74 (43/74)
Constitutional MDR (14/17)

Day 3

Began Real Property properly today - lecturer is funny but didn't really listen to them cus heard it before so just did spider diagrams on Mortgages, Recording System and Land Conveyancing. Fun subjects(!)

Did around 4 essays (as opposed to planned 3) and 2 lots of MCQ stuff... flagging a bit in evening!
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MCQ's done: Criminal Adv 1-35 (20/35)
Real Property MDR (10/17)

Getting started - day 2

Yesterday I finally received through the materials - books and lectures for the Cali bar exam in July. Crazy isn't it! SO close!!! Spent most of yesterday trying to schedule around barbri's paced planner. The problem is, their paced planner begun May 20th doing approx 2 subjects a week and taking you right up to the exam nicely. However, because they messed me around this time with delays in getting the materials and then delays in sending them out I didn't receive them until yesterday - almost a month into the paced programme they suggest you follow.

Hence - I scheduled it so that I am pretty much doing one subject per day, 3 essays a day, and 2 lots of MCQ's a day until July 4th when the paced planner thing would have just finished the main bulk of the new law stuff and begun proper review of everything. July 4th I basically catch up with the paced planner and join it possibly for the rest of the time until the exam - it worked last time with the NY bar exam so definitely willing to give it a go this time as well!

So yesterday after the whole scheduling thing, I sat and began listening to Civil Procedure lectures - managed to get through almost 5 hours before decided it was pointless going on (too knackered) so hit the sack; Then got up this morning around 7.30 ish, did half an hour, went back to sleep for an hour, then got up and finished the rest of Civil Procedure. After this I got on with what I had 'scheduled' for today - i.e. Criminal law/Crim law MCQ's and CP essays. Going ok so far but the problem always comes with sticking to a schedule after x number of days - first few days tend to be alright - it's a bit of a novelty and you aren't quite tired out yet but after a certain number of days doing the same kinda shit, day in, day out and not seeing any light at the end of the tunnel - that's when it's gonna get bad - and that will probably be around this time next week.

Gonna try to keep updating this thing daily mainly just to keep a record of the 'experience' i guess lol. Back to it!

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MCQ's taken today - Criminal Intermediate 1-74 - Score = 53/74