back in sd

i'm back home in san diego after christmas. actually, i've been back home for a few days and already back to school and had two practice tests.

i was only in arizona for a very short time, and it was pretty stressful. i debated going because i knew it would be stressful for reasons other than the bar exam, and the bar provides enough stress in my life right now to last a few lifetimes, so i'm all stocked up as it is.

i did get to see some friends at christie's holiday party, which was lots of fun. it was so nice to not think about the bar for a night. my friends are awesome, i feel really lucky to have some very interesting, intelligent, fun ladies as my friends. and, i got to see my buddy, the scroatster! although he didn't try to hump me like he used to. he did sniff my crotch a few times though, so i still feel loved.




my stepdad got a nintendo wii for christmas, so we played all night long.




it was lots of fun, i already know what's on my christmas list for next year! i rocked at baseball - i can throw an 75 mph curveball! so, at least if this whole lawyer thing doesn't work out i have that going for me ;)


the international auto show is in san diego this weekend. i'd be really excited about that, except that i have class all weekend :( can you believe it? school on a weekend?

it's nice to be home and have my own bed again. when i'm in arizona, i share a bed with my sister....


....and her two dogs.


that by itself wouldn't be too bad, although a little crowded, except this one....
...has really bad gas. which makes for an interesting night.

santa brought me the best gift i could've asked for - a parking pass for a lot near my school. parking in that area is hell. this morning i walked 10 blocks to school, carrying probably 40 lbs of books, uphill both ways ;) its not the safest neighborhood for walking to my car late at night, so the pass will get LOTS of use!

lots of other stuff to talk about, but i have an MBE test tomorrow morning, so plenty of work to do tonight. one last picture, just for fun. there are few things in this world as beautiful as a desert sunset.



out.
- L

happy holidays!

i'm in arizona for the holidays. i only get a few days off from class, so i'm not here long. the sad part, i had to bring work with me. but, i'm determined to do nothing but relax and enjoy the time off tomorrow on christmas. its weird, i have to actually tell myself not to study. i'll have to resist the temptation that while everyone else is napping or playing with their presents, that i shouldn't go excuse myself and pick up a book and study.



but, i swear i will not study on christmas!



this was the holiday card i sent out this year. cute, huh?




and oh so true, me buried in books :(

happy holidays to all! hope you don't do any studying tomorrow either!



out.

- L

study while you sleep

wow. studying for the bar suuuuuuuucks. i've only been at it for a few days, but it's worse than i expected. and honestly, i expected it to be pretty bad. i basically do nothing but study, go to work, and sleep these days. life suddenly became VERY boring! it's funny how i make it sound like it used to be interesting ;)

i have, however, gotten creative about ways to fit in studying time. i downloaded (uploaded?) some MBE subject lectures on cd to my iPod. now, i can listen to them at the gym, in the car, while walking to/from school, or while eating. i've found it helps me get in my 10-12 hours of studying a day. i've also started listening to law lectures at night while sleeping. there's an episode of the tv show "friends" where chandler is trying to quit smoking so he listens to a tape at night that tells him he is a "strong, confident woman that doesn't need to smoke". the tapes help chandler to stop smoking, but also make him start acting like a woman. here's the episode, in case you care to watch:

anyway, i started thinking that maybe there's something to this whole "subliminal message" thing. so, i'm listening to law while i sleep. do you think i get to count that as 7 hours of studying? ;)

i've also made some bar flashcards. i'm interested to see how many flashcards i have when this is all over with. i bet i'll have a few hundred cards to memorize, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of making flaschards. but, they too help me fit in a few more minutes of studying here and there. i'm going over my flashcards while at work today. and, i look over the cards while soaking in the bathtub. i even look over them sometimes when going to the bathroom.

the good news is, today is friday and i don't have class again until next thursday! woo hoo! i still of course have to study every day but christmas, but it will be a lot easier to get in my hours of studying when i'm not in class for part of the day.

i took some sample constitutional law (the subject from yesterday & today) MBE questions yesterday while studying. i looked at the beginner, intermediate, and advanced questions. i did horrible on the beginner questions - i missed almost 50% of them. but ironically, i rocked the intermediate & advanced, getting over 80% correct! isn't that strange? turns out i'm just too damn smart for the easy questions ;) i hope the intermediate and advanced questions are on the bar. i'm sure this is the only subject where i'll actually wish for hard questions!

back to work, then studying.

peace out.
- L

goals

wow. it has been a VERY long day. was at school from 7:30am to 2:00pm (have i mentioned that i'm not a morning person?), then straight to work from 2:30-5:00pm. came home & had my left over subway sandwich (mmmm, sandwiches) & headed to the library, which is where i'm at now. i have to memorize half of the 50 page tort outline for tomorrow. good god, what have i gotten myself into?

at least torts is kinda interesting. did you know you can't defend your property with lethal force? a common misconception is that you can shoot trespassers. you can't. the torts professor giving the lecture was actually quite funny, so that also helped keep me from falling asleep after 7 hours of shit. he used a lot of sexual references in his examples - my kind of professor. i now know much more about syphyllis than i ever wanted to. hopefully i know a little something about torts, too.

the boring intro lecture this morning talked about preparing for the bar and setting some goals to keep us disciplined, so i've decided to do just that. i'm sure my goals will need some fine tuning as i better understand exactly what i need to do, but here they are for now:

- complete at least 1700 practice MBEs (those are the multiple choice questions on the bar) by the time the bar rolls around
- complete at least 5 essays by the bar
- complete at least 3 Performance Tests by the bar
- go to the gym at least 3-4 times a week
- have at least one night a week where i don't study for at least 3 hours (more if i'm caught up) and do whatever i want
- sleep at least 7 hours a night
- call friends/family at least once every two weeks
- limit my weight gained (i know i'll probably gain a little because of stress, sitting on my ass studying all day, and not eating as healthy as i should) to 5 lbs over the two months
- shower daily. i've heard lots of stories about bar studiers that stop showering/shaving. i don't want to be "that" girl - you know, the one that smells.


i'll think of more later, but if i'm going to get in my 7 hours of sleep tonight, i better get back to work.

out.
- L
-

back to school

school starts tomorrow. to be honest, i'm kinda nervous. i have no idea what to expect. i don't even know how long class is tomorrow - i haven't received a schedule yet. all i know is that i show up tomorrow morning at 8am.

i feel like i'm a little kid again nervous about the first day of school. tonight i dusted off my backpack. it's seen a lot of use recently, but not for school in a while. it has sand in it from all its trips to the beach. and, it had a few drops of pee on it from that puppy at dog beach that thought it looked like a fire hydrant. and, it has some leaves in it from all the wind and rain last weekend when we took it to december nights at balboa park. at least i showed it a good time during its break ;)

i also made my little bag lunch, complete with my name on the bag. in law school, my name is "ms. junck", so that's the name i write on my bag. that way people KNOW its mine. i guarantee there's no other "junck" at my school, so that "oh, i thought it was mine" crap aint' gonna fly.

i'm also going to go set out my outfit for tomorrow. that's mostly because i badly need to do laundry right now and i don't want to waste the time in the morning finding something clean.

it's been four months since school ended, so i feel a little rusty. and, unfortunately for me, the majority of what's on the bar exam is what is taught during the first year of law school. i feel disadvantaged because my first year was one year longer ago than anyone else taking this test for the first time, due to my stupid medical leave of absence. its bad enough that my leave comes back to haunt me everytime i feel sick, but now it's like a huge cloud over my head. my first year of law school was four years ago, and i don't remember much from it. i feel completely disadvantaged.

i really shouldn't feel too nervous. although i've had a lot of fun over the past four months since school has been out and have been going out quite a bit, i've also been pretty good about studying. two to three times a week i've had study nights. and, i've taught myself constitutional law 2 (a class i never took) by reading books and giving myself tests. it was almost like taking the class. the good news is i passed, although my professor was kind of crazy. just kidding ;)


i had coffee tonight with someone i used to know and was reminded of how things always look different in hindsight. there are things in my life i would have done differently. even looking back tonight, there are so many things i'd like to change about the past year. actually, just one big thing. i can't help but wonder how my life would be different today if i could change that. i hope that when the bar is over, i don't look back and wish i did these next few months differently.

i bet school won't be so bad. but i feel a little like billy madison intimidated by the first day of school. i've been singing the "back to school" song all day long.




well, here goes nothin'.

out.
-L

changing "careers"

yesterday was my last full day of work for a while. i'll still go to work a few times a week, but studying is now my full time job. after four months of being out of school, i am a student yet again. i've always loved being a student - i love learning. not sure i'm going to like this learning quite so much, but i'm trying to put a positive spin on it.

passing this exam (whenever that may occur) also allows me to move up. i can never be anything more than a law clerk without it.

besides, a break from working full time sounds nice. at least now i can stop showering every morning.

just kidding.

i will miss work though. where else can i be a goof?



out.
- L

a preview of what's to come

over the past few months i've found it challenging to learn to talk to people about something other than law school. since that's been such a big part of my life for the past 4 years, its a big part of my conversation arsenal. i've noticed that when i talk about things, everything occurred in relation to law school. for example, i started going out with my exboyfriend during my second year of law school. or, i obtained my current car duing my first year of law school. really....why can't i say that i got it in late 2003? people must wonder what the hell i'm talking about. i've been trying to rectify this problem, but its definitely been a challenge. i wonder if for the next few months everything will be in relation to bar studying. such as: i saw comedian joey diaz perform during my first week of bar studying. (that's next friday - should be fun).

i went on a date recently, and it was a normal, lawschool-less date, until he made the mistake of asking about the bar exam. ten minutes later i found myself still talking about the exam, about how much time i'll spend studying for it, what's on the test, the pass/fail rate, etc. don't i sound like such a fun date?! hell, even i wouldn't want to date me right now, and i ALWAYS want to date me :)

at least i'm not like this on a date:



i promise one day i'll be interesting again. unless you never thought i was interesting, then in that case.....good news! i already meet your expectations of uninterestingness.

but for the next few months, don't expect anything intelligent or interesting to come out of my mouth, and in return, i'll try to learn to talk about something besides the bar exam.

- L

the holidays

i'm still debating whether i will go home to arizona for christmas. it's only 20 days away, so if i'm going to get a flight reservation i probably need to jump on that soon. i think we only get a few days off from bar class for the holiday though, and i know if i go home i won't get any studying done. but then again, being alone on christmas in my little apartment sounds really depressing. besides, i don't have a fireplace....how is santa going to get in??

it's amazing how my life begins to revolve around this exam. wanna know what exciting gifts i'm asking santa for this year? a parking pass for one of the lots near my school library. woo frickin hooooo.

i'm hoping my christmas looks a little like this:



"life is more than the sum of its parts."

- L

the countdown is on!!

first off, i'm studying for the bar, so don't expect any proper capitalization or grammar here. i'll spit out buttloads of essays displaying correct usage of the english language in three months when my future depends on it. until then, i'm not wasting the brain power or the finger strength reaching for the shift key.

added a countdown clock below using my very favorite cartoon characters of all times, cow and chicken. i still think cow and chicken is just about the funniest cartoon ever. or the stupidest. its a good thing those aren't mutually exclusive. at the time of this post, there are 86 days until the bar exam. that's just under three months which, right now, sounds like a long ways away. i know it will be here tomorrow.

i'm not yet nervous about taking the exam - that will come later when the barbri course professors constantly remind me how impossible this exam is. no, now i'm more nervous (or should i have said "nervouser" since i'm disregarding grammar?) about having no life for two-and-a-half months. am i really supposed to do nothing but study from now until then? especially when i've never looked cuter???

sense the sarcasm.

the pre-bar review class i was taking ended yesterday. that's exciting. the bar review starts in two weeks. that's depressing. looks like i have two weeks of freedom followed by two-and-a-half months of slowly torturing myself into a studying-induced oblivion.

if only "bar" exam meant i was tested on how to make delicious alcoholic concoctions. i might actually pass that one.

and so it begins.

- L