Stressful times

Two days ago while sitting in a school's study room, which I had shared with other two students from my program, I heard their worries about approaching finals.

Being frank with you, till that day I was thinking of exams, but I was not freaking out. But a chain reaction from their talks passed to me quickly, despite my angry resistance.

I have less than two weeks before time when I have to pull out my outlines and spend 3.5 hours writing answers. My two outlines are half-done, one outline looks as a blank page. As always I had planned to catch up on a weekend, and as always I did not. I feel the energy is leaving my body and I have no time to replenish it.

Anyway, I guess my point is I begin worrying and I know it is no good.

Inspiration --> motivation --> I am here

I have got an inspiration to start blogging again. Since my life is mostly spent with books and in communication with people who do not care much about events in my life, I have decided to annoy my blog abandoned for so long time with my silly thoughts.

Since a school is a center of my life, I will begin with it. Last quarter ended with good grades (my points received were not excellent, but high enough to get As). This quarter I am taking Estate and Gift tax, International Taxation and Corporate Tax I. International Taxation is most complicated and boring (BTW, this is what I am avoiding to do at this moment but creating this blog entry). I also continue working in a clinic, a time-consuming but interesting stuff.

Beyond-the-school life is boring - TV, shopping, cooking and rare meetings with friends (and by "rare" I mean I did not see them for more than a month). Physical exercises are on my to-do-list but by the end of the day they end up on my things-not-done list. This continues from the beginning of the quarter. It is a pity, because my body looks terrible - fat and ... no, I am not going to talk about gross things.

Now, update is done and I have no excuses for not studying.

By the way, the reason I decided to write is that a February bar exam is approaching, and I see many people with BarBri books in the library and in the school's halls. So what I wanted to say is that I am SO HAPPY that I have passed the bar exam and I am SO GLAD, that rather than studying Con Law or Criminal law or whatever, I need to do my homework for International Taxation. Thank you, God!!!

I passed the Bar Exam!!!

I passed!!! I did it!!! I cannot believe it!!! I do not know what to say except maybe that I never ever should lose a confidence in my abilities. The fact that I PASSED shows that studying hard will be paid off sooner or later [better sooner, of course]!

Bar Advisor

I was in the midst of my deliberation whether I should post about my feelings as to the bar exam I have taken three days ago. After reading an article (see below) I have decided to follow the advice of the author and limit my story to the following: "this was hell!" Anyway, the life is going on and you will see later how it goes for me . :-)))

Bar Advisor: "do not blog (publicly) about the bar exam until AFTER you have passed it.

Why do I say this? To begin with, a blog requires lots of psychic energy to maintain. When you draft a post, you want it to be interesting,
well-written, and timely. You worry about it before you send it off into the blogosphere where anyone can read it. When you are studying for the bar
examination, you do not have time for such a distraction and drain of mental resources.

Next, constant and public worry about failing the bar exam (which is what the majority of these bar-exam blog posts contain) will begin to infiltrate your mind and create an expectation of failure. You may not believe it, but it is true. And, guess what, if you fail, you'll be able to continue blogging about how much you hate the bar exam and your loyal readers will keep reading your posts. This is a sick form of codependency."

Tough times: this summer does not exist for me, unfortunately

I was keeping myself from blogging, because I wanted to post some kind of introduction after a long absence. You see, a law school is behind now (and no regret about it). I thought maybe some thoughts related to the past three years would be a good way to open a new page of my life. But, frankly, I do not know what to write. Three years passed quickly and with many difficulties, grey thoughts and doubts. I do not think I want to look back and show my regrets or misery, if there were such (or maybe I just do not want to confess. I cannot say I had a fun time in a law school. Pressure of good grades, strong and continuous competition had been sucking out all my energy and desire to be happy and just enjoy life. Definitely I did not choose a right course of life: I did not do what I like to do (read fiction, travel, communicate with people), but selected sitting with textbooks or just doing nothing while weeping about my unhappy days in a law school. By no means have these sentences had a purpose to discourage new law school applicants from going to school (though you would better think before you make such decision). It is just a warning that before you want to bind your life with a law school, you should prepare yourself for hard work and stressful life.

Overall, it would be a lie if I say I have not enjoyed my L years in full. I loved clinic, I loved practicing law (although it was only as a student-attorney), I loved learning tricks and dark corners of tax and business law. But I hated law school exams, outlines and useless theory which is useless in the preparation for the bar exam.

Anyway, since a bar preparation is in its high peak and taking all my thoughts and dreams, I often wish to scribble something here for my own memory and perhaps even for some occasional reader of this blog as a note how it is done, how it should not be done, how it could be done and some other mixed thoughts. Since my communication is incredibly limited during those days—husband and computer—I have a need in some relief, although I'll speak to nobody.

Happy Easter!!!

Today the lent is over! I can eat meat, fish, milk, eggs, cheeses (I missed those). But being honest, I do not feel much of joy. An ideal Easter for me is to get together with my relatives and/or friends, drink a glass of good wine, eat incredibly delicious food cooked by my mom, sit and chat.

This morning started for me in blue: no time to cook except boiled eggs (since I have spent 5 hours of TV watching yesterday), bad news from home (my mom does not feel well), no time for fun (the amount of work to be done before Monday is enormous).

Yeap, this is how it goes.

THE BAD day

You know sometimes we have those bad days, when you want just to cry or to ask everything and everybody go to hell? Yeah, this is my day today. Whether it is because of the winter time approaching, or I feel like absolutely unsatisfied with what I do, or maybe it is those articles about bad economy and about lay-offs of the lawyers, or maybe my conversation with a friend about hardships to find a job in this place (or maybe in all US). For the past two weeks I have been thinking that I made a bad choice going to a law school. Isn't it strange? I was always thinking that this is what I wanted to do, and now those thoughts? Just uncertainty in the future calls for the pessimistic thoughts that killing all my enjoyment of life (if I ever had such!!!???). Some people avoid there frustration by plunging into work. This is what I should do, I think, instead of pouring sheet on these pages.

Writing emails and writing on English

I have just finished writing an email to one of faculty members. I swear, I checked email over and over and continued find mistakes, very silly once. I have noticed that when I am writing I translate from my native language forgetting that English has different structure. How long am I in the States? More than 5 years? It is quite a bit, but I still feel that my language is so much imperfect. How to learn it? How other immigrants do? Is it my age or stupidity from birth? I am very frustrated.

In addition to this, my relationships with husband are kind of tense. Recently he is constantly grumpy and doesn't talk. That makes me upset, because I am a people person. If I don't speak to others, I become depressed. If I am depressed, I cannot do anything. Last two days, instead of studying for exams, I have been surfing Internet and watching TV. It is no good. Moreover, if I am behind on reading, I suffer an insomnia. Dreadful thing, I must confess. If I don't sleep well, I don't feel well next day. If I don't feel well, I don't think well. If I don't think well, I don't study well. What a chain of causation! I'd better get some tea with hopes that caffeine will help me.

I feel like a shit

Sorry for using such words, but I feel like a shit. In a week exams will begin but I feel I know nothing. And I am the one who told that plan to get at least 2 As this semester. I hardly believe I can do it. I really really freak out. I feel like school made me even more stupid than I was.

Maybe I need to find some links on how-not-to-feel-stupid???!! :-))

Flow

Today I have got some good feedback, but for some reason it does not make me feel right. Why? I do not know. perhaps, because now I have raise a bar of expectation too high and I am afraid I will not be able to jump over it again :-( God help me and give more confidence.

Yesterday I was called on in Agency class. I did answer but not the questions given. I do not feel bad, but I wish I could have done better.

Bottom line - I feel weird, like something is going to happen and I will not like it. Maybe it is election thing? Who knows?

Life is full of .... [fill a blank]

So what did I do today? I had a midterm on Income Tax class... yeahhh ... I was behind in studying and therefore I was nervous like never booooo... I did not sleep. Actually, I slept 3-4 hours at night... I studied and after I could not fall asleep. What a life! Consequently today I was exhausted and tired. Exam was easy. The problem is that I have realized that after I wrote an exam and left a classroom. What do I think of the exam? I failed ... [cursing]. I forgot to answer third question - yes forgot, even though I might have known the answer, and I messed up parties (as always) of the transactions (no suprise for me). as a result I applied wrong rules. I am miserable now and I want to cry but I do not have tears. The point of this giberish is not complaining (enough of it I had on these pages), but to discuss the fact of life - I study for exam and do not sleep at night, because I want to have a good result, and then I come to exam and almost fall asleep there, at least my mind did this. As a result I will have result not better than if I slept at night instead of snoozing above a textbook. Conclusion? study smart! do this step by step. I avoided that and here is the result :-(((

My pain

I am working on my memo for judge now. What a pain. Imagine, what a horor to know that you are really bad writer, and then, after you wrote some shit, that lacks grammar and sense will be read by a person who was for a decade on the bench. I freak out. In addition my unskillful writing, I am behind my due date and this freaks me out even more.

An interesting fact is that I've done my research, I know what I want to say, but when I try to put this on paper, nonsense comes out or just non-writing mood. I guess I do not have to tell you much if you have read my blog (or at least a couple of posts).

How is my law school life? Every day I tell myself - "My life SUCKS" and there are no other thoughts excepts during nights when I am troubled by lack of sleep. Indeed, you should believe a person who says 2L is easier. It is, just because you know what you are doing. You understand that you have no idea what Justice wanted to say in a case, not because you are stupid, but because the writer of an opinion was (or is) stupid and vague and ambiguous. It might appear to you that he wrote his opinion in one night being drunk after dozens of glasses of whisky. BUT... 2L is much busier and this sucks. I have 4 classes, I have a journal, a judicial internship. All this is hanging above my head and I see it as nothing more but an old stinky rope rubbed with even stinkier soap. You know what I want to do? Hang myself. Then I forgot about my misery of 2L life and misery of fear finals.
rrrrr....