The Bar Exam. Or, How I'm Spending My Summer.

Hi all!

It's been a busy two weeks. To recap: FitBlog, then the next day I went to Cuba for a school trip. I got back, celebrated Sourabh's birthday, then my parents arrived for my law school graduation. Which took place in the pouring rain with thunder and lightning also making an appearance. My parents and I then headed up to Montreal and Quebec City for a five day road trip.

I forgot to include this photo in my post about Quebec!
They have tiny buses!! Look at this tiny adorable bus!

It's been wonderful, but I'm really looking forward to settling back into routine over the next few months. It's hard to eat healthy and get in the kind of exercise I like to do when traveling, and while I try to always walk a lot and eat a healthy breakfast and lunch, I also don't want to miss out on experiences like trying an authentic Cuban dish or eating in a wonderful French bistro. And that's a good thing, I think!

But now we're back to routine, which is also good. I have a special routine this summer. What does that routine look like?

Bar review books. Foam roller included for scale.

This. It looks like this.

I've mentioned bar review and the bar exam, but not said much about it. Basically, I will be either watching lectures or reading about topics and completing practice questions, all summer long.

For the course I'm taking, I can either watch a taped lecture in a lecture hall with classmates or in my apartment, so I have the feeling I'll mostly be watching at home.

My screen view today.

Each lecture is about 4 hours long, but some are a bit more and others are a bit less. You have a book of handouts which you fill out as you follow along with the lecture (except for this week, where we don't have handouts and just have to take notes). There are also books with more information that you need to study and learn.

The bar exam is a two day exam, 6 hours each day. It's offered twice a year, in February and the end of July, and I'm taking it in July. It has multiple choice parts and essay parts. It is closed-book, meaning I have to have everything in those books up there memorized. Basically.

After yesterday's first lecture, I had 9 pages of notes total. There are about 30 lectures. Eeeeek. Yes, I'm getting kind of nervous.

I'm going to start increasing my mileage in anticipation of marathon training, so it'll be nice to have therapy runs to turn to whenever I get stressed. I have the feeling there will be a lot of those! And yes, there will also be more healthy eating and exercise posts again :)


Have you ever taken a giant exam? Do you like getting back to routine after being away from it for a while?