4.50 pm
Sunday afternoon on a gorgeous summer weekend, and I've spent almost all of it inside studying. Which, at this point anyway, is beginning to seem like a futile endeavor. I wouldn't mind my entire summer being consumed by Conviser and NYT and really bad puns if I felt like I was making any progress. But the fact is, three weeks into Bar Bri, I feel stupider than ever. I've gone from being able to spot the issues on essay questions with reasonable proficiency to not even having a clue what's being tested. I've been told to use common sense when answering the MBE questions if I come across an unfamiliar point of law - but my common sense seems to have no relation to the bar examiner's common sense.

The frustrating part, is I've never had this much trouble studying before. Once I figured out that the key to law school exams was to do a bunch of practice problems, I did fine. Sure, I made outlines, but I rarely used them during exams - the process of doing practice essays was what made me memorize the law. Here? I feel like I'm running a marathon. Through the woods. Off trail. blindfolded. No matter how much I study, no matter how many obscure points of law I think I'm memorizing - there's another five that I don't know.

On the upside, at least I'm not trying to take care of last minute wedding details, too!