Day One: You Call This a Bar Exam?

Day one is over.

The rules are kinda ridiculous because you're not allowed to bring a bag in. So I carried my laptop. But then it turns out that people were bringing their bags, but leaving them out in the hallway outside the room.

It was hilarious because all of the proctor type people were ancient. It was honestly like they bussed in the local senior citizen home and dumped them there. I was carrying a seat cushion and got stopped 3 times and told no bags allowed...because they couldn't see that it was a seat cushion. And it was funny whenever anyone had a question about the ExamSoft program, all the old people were clueless. Ahahaha. Yes, we've entrusted our legal future to people on the brink of dementia.

The test center was pretty big. Just a huge hall. It was better than NV's set up where we were in a hotel room and we had to sit diagonally from each other on each side of the table. This time we were only on one side and had plenty of room between each person. So I was able to spread all my notes out and everything.

I decided to go see another movie after the exam. Ahahaha. I guess it makes up for all the movies I missed while studying. I went and saw Vantage Point. It was kinda lame. I'd wait to see it on DVD if I were you.

I'm not sure how to feel about it. One one hand, I thought the essays were really straight forward. Question 1 was a torts question. A little boy is playing in a field when his pet pigeon flies next door, where there happens to be an electrical power plant. The boy climbs the fence to get the bird, the bird flaps its wings jarring the boy and causing him to electrocute himself.

Who the hell has a pet pigeon?

Then there was a professional responsibility question (legal ethics) again pretty straight forward.

Then there was a criminal procedure question mixed with criminal law. The only crime was a killing and asked us to describe what he could be charged with.

The reason I'm uneasy is because it seemed TOO straightforward. Like, I think I spotted the issues, but it doesn't seem to be a lot there. And I don't know if I fleshed out my answers enough.

We had almost an hour and a half lunch, so I came back to the hotel and watched some daytime TV. Man, there is nothing on during the day except judge judy wannabe's and soaps.

In the afternoon we had the performance exam A. I may have explained before, you basically get a memo from a senior attorney telling you to draft some document. Then you get a file with facts in it and another file with the "library" which is all the cases and statutes you need. Today we were drafting an opposition to a motion to dismiss.

I didn't think it was that hard because it seemed like what i do everyday at work. It's just drafting memos with a persuasive tone. But from what I've been reading online, people thought it was crazy hard.

I'm not stressing out over it cause I felt fine. And I should probably stop doing a post-mortem.

There seems like a lot less stress this time cause there's no real consequence if I don't pass. I mean with NV if I didn't pass, it would be bad because then I couldn't practice at work for 4 months. But if I don't pass CA, I can still practice in NV. I'm out some money and it would be a little awkward, but I could just retake it if I want.

Tomorrow is multiple choice. It'll be the same as NV, so I know exactly what to expect.

Thursday is the same format as today, 3 more essays and then another performance test.

So far I feel like NV was harder. We had more essays and the questions were a lot more difficult.

2 more days and then it's party time.