pmbr: day 1

now that i'm done with the sappy post, down to the nuts and bolts of getting ready for the bar. today was the first day of pmbr. as a preliminary matter, i should lay out my studying plans, as i promised i would:

may 22-27: pmbr 6-day 'early-bird' course
may 30- july 11: bar/bri
mid-july: pmbr 3-day intensive seminar
late july: personal freak-out time
july 25-27: california state bar examination

i'm taking a pretty conventional approach, i signed up for both of the major bar study courses that are marketed to us on campus. it's nothing horribly exciting, but it will be an experience. i wonder if (read: i doubt that) i can keep my head above water enough to post here every day, but i'm going to try to, just to chronicle my experience. maybe, if someone reads this, i'll serve to highlight the places where i was counter-productive or misguided and help some poor soul in the future who thinks that this is a good idea to have a more successful experience.... of course there's always the chance that the poor soul in the future could be me, retaking the exam.

back to the first day of pmbr. i first had to get there. partly due to my environmental conscience, partly due to my desire to drop a few pounds, and partly due to skycorcketing gas prices, i've chosen to ride my bike and take a train to my bar preparation classes. since i haven't done this in over two and a half years, i didn't really remember how long it took to get going in the morning (i also forgot to factor in a little emergency bike maintenance to get my old beater mountain bike rolling). as a result, i sat at the train station for the better part of an hour, after i missed the 6:42 a.m. train. fortunately, i brought a book. unfortunately, i was only about 20 pages from the end and spent the bulk of my time on the platform contemplating my navel.

at any rate, i got to class on time, just not as early as i'd planned on, so i wasn't able to pick up the materials that they would have mailed me if i'd registered earlier. our day consisted of an untimed 50 multiple-choice question session in the morning (we were given two hours, assuming a one-hour lunch) and a three hour lecture in the afternoon, during which we reviewed our answers and the general issue areas and concepts of federal evidence rules.

we were told to grade our exams during our lunch break and not to be discouraged by our outcomes. our proctor assured us that evidence is likely one of the hardest subjects we'll ever face and doing it on the first day would make it that much harder. the proctor told us not to be discouraged if we only scored around 44-46%. the first ten questions, i got seven right. then it took me 30 more questions to get another seven right. i scored 38%. i tried to play it off, but it did knock the wind out of my sails a little.

the odd thing for me was the book's classification of the questions when compared with how well i did on them. i think nearly every question that the book referred to as 'tricky' or 'really difficult' i answered correctly. but, conversely, every question they identified as 'straightforward' or 'basic' i struggled with. of course, once we went over the answers i understood the problem i had. all i remember from evidence are a set of special exceptions and rare rules that i hoped would make the difference on the exam. i don't remember the basics. at all. i could remember the key words that made up the definition of hearsay, but not how to arrange them into something other than legalistic-sounding gobbeldy-gook. it was a rocky first day.

tomorrow: constitutional law