A Summer at the Bar Shouldn't Be This Dry

I am only two weeks in to Bar Prep and am looking for the exit. I have no stamina. I don't know if I am just out of practice with the whole idea of studying every day (haven't done that since first year) or if my innate laziness is just more pronounced under these concentrated conditions. Regardless of the cause, this can very easily translate into a problem (of the large and hulking variety).

This is the sort of schedule advocated by the BarBri program:

8:00 - 9:00 am: Prepatory Reading
9:00 am - 12:30pm: BarBri Lectures
12:30 - 1:30: travel time / lunch
1:30 - 3:30: MBE Practice Questions
3:30 - 4:00: Break, fold laundry
4:00 - 6:00: Study Substantive law
6:00 - 7:00: Dinner
7:00 - 8:00pm: Study Substantive Law

Rinse and Repeat 6 days out of 7. (Seriously, we are supposed to schedule in allotted time to fold laundry and all those other household things)

That is not going to happen. First of all such a rigid schedule would, I believe, be counterproductive for me; my guilt complex is too refined. I am not going to waste energy angsting over what I am not doing when that (at present limited) energy can be invested in what I am. (That in a nutshell is my take-away lesson from first year of law school). Secondly, I think that I am constitutionally incapable of studying 8-10 hours a day over 6 weeks. That is just so...abysmally bleak. And, it is childish and undisciplined, but I don't perform particularly well when so amazingly un-inspired. It would be different, I expect if I knew why I was doing this - what I was doing afterwards, but that is another big unknown.

Let me illustrate my present performance under this little black rain-cloud:

Anna's Adjusted Study Schedule
7:15 am: Alarm goes off
7:23am: Alarm goes off again

Somewhen between 7:23 and 7:30 I had a dream which revealed the secret of life the universe and everthing and everthing is peacefull and wonderful and...

7:31 am: Alarm again, secret to enlightment lost in cacophony
7:40(ish): Out of bed and prepare for the day
NPR's Morning edition reminds me (but only just vaguely) that there is a world outside of Bar Prep and procrastination. It also reminds me that it's not always gumdrops and rainbows. Wish I had that secret to life the universe and everything.

[There is a black hole somewhere between 8:00 - 8:30 where time is distorted and despite being ready to leave at a reasonable hour, I am running late again...]

9:10am: Slide in ten minutes late to lecture class; today's topic: Suretyship and Liens
9:15 am: "A suretyship is created where a third party agrees to 'back up the debt' of another under circumstances which the initial debtor is still liable."
9:17 am: Lecturer looks like an old Michael Douglas (which makes him really old) but sounds like John Goodman.
9:20 - 9:40: I give suretyship interests some very serious attention and consideration.
9:45 am: I am proud of my attention to the topic, I reward myself with brief reflection on sex.
9:50 am: "A promise to serve as a surety must be supported by consideration except where surety signs a promissory note."
9:57 am: sex, sex, sex....


I won't continue, but you see where I am going with this? Distracted, undisciplined, and uninspired (or inspired by the wrong things at least; let me say when you find yourself attracted to the lecturer because he has the slightest resemblance to Stephen Colbert and a southern minister you are going too far).

In conclusion, balance is important in life. For my own health and productivity the the demanding schedule and reclusive expectations are going to have to wait until July at the earliest.

--Anna

Some thoughts on Sex and the City

This Friday I put on my party shoes, grabbed my faux-Prada purse and went to the movies for the opening of Sex and the City! (insert bouncy theme music here). Sex and the City, drinks with ‘the girls,’ and an unfettered passion for footwear have proved an important, unifying aspect of the typical 21st American girl’s life…as proved by the long line of other similarly heeled theatre-goers. Unfortunately, this 21st century girl has long since passed the stage where the adventures of the self-absorbed and uncompromising elite proved entertaining or revolutionary. (That all sounds well and good, but it really comes down to the fact that I really just don’t like Carrie) So, while all dressed up and ready to toast the movie with a cosmopolitan with my friends, I wasn’t expecting much from the movie itself. Sometimes I love it when I am wrong!


Thus far the movie has gotten a decidedly bad rap in the Life & Style section of the major newspapers and magazine. The New York Times called it “vulgar, shrill, deeply shallow…[and] overlong.” Under the byline “Girl’s Gone Mild” Newsweek described the many Manolo heels featured as the “sharpest thing” about the recent release. The New York Time’s review at least, is undeserved. The conclusion in all the Life and Style sections seems to be that the ‘Style is still ‘fabulous’ (with perhaps the exception of an odd avian headdress – a bit too ‘Bride of Frankenstein in Technicolor’) but the ‘Life’ supremely inconsequential and out of touch. As Manohla Dargis for the NYT observed: “It’s…awash with materialism and narcissism.” My question: where have you been the last 10 years? The show was outrageous, observant and revolutionary – but never particularly profound. Even the big dramas Carrie weathered throughout the six seasons always carried an element of triviality. Sex and the City’s contribution is that it asked the questions. It didn’t provide the answers but it was always honest. I respect this most recent production (and Michael Patrick King’s writing) because it retained this honesty.

Sex and the City defined a generation. Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha are this girl’s generation’s cultural gurus. While I waited in line, ticket in hand with dozens of other young women in heels and labels, my mind ran along the lines of a religious pilgrimage (the Wive’s Tale in the age of bikini waxing and texting). As if we were all here for answers on how to be young, fearless, and fabulous (seriously, if there is a handbook circulating on this topic, I would love to peruse it). In returning to the big screen, Sex and the City, comes with Big expectations. Michael Patrick King and the producers were clearly conscious of and sensitive to this expectation and responsibility, gently refuting it in the closing sequence: Carrie addresses an audience at her bookstore on her most recent book, reflecting on why women who have flouted “The Rules” in every other aspect of our personal and professional lives continue to cleave to them so tenaciously when it comes to love, sex and marriage, concluding that happiness comes down to the ‘you and me.’ It may not be the grand wedding closing of the usual Cinderella story but this is one of the most honest and hopeful happily ever afters I’ve ever encountered.


For a thoughtful review on SATC visit the LA Times here.