Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Tired

I don't want to whine. I really truly don't. It's annoying. It's frustrating. But imagine how annoying and frustrating it is to FEEL this way. So I will. Because if I don't I'm going to go more insane and I don't know how much more insanity is even possible. Because I'm flipping exhausted from trying to keep it together.




I am not, by nature, an emotional person. My mother's most constant adjective for me is "bitchy". I don't really take this as an insult. Mostly. I AM bitchy. As the magnet in my room says, "You say I'm a bitch like it's a bad thing."

But right now? Fuck. Right now I'm a train wreck. I want to throw the barbri books and my computer after it across the room. And now I'm sobbing, for which I had to leave the kitchen because in my house sobbing is verboten. We do not show emotions. It goes against what we were taught as good, repressed Irish Catholics.

There's a scene in Little Children where Patrick Wilson drives off to have a dalliance with Kate Winslet instead of taking the bar exam. Good god do I imagine that fantasy right now. If it weren't for the NON REFUNDABLE $700 already spent on this exam, I would totally flip it the bird and go party.

Ya know what the worst thing anyone says to you when you're prepping for this? "You're smart! You'll do fine!" Yes, I'm smart but I'm also incredibly lazy WHICH I CAN NOT WORK MY WAY OUT OF EVEN REALIZING IT AS A CHARACTER FLAW!!! And I'm not bar smart. I have written rule statements over and over and over again and you'd think they'd stick, that I'd be able to tell you down pat what the definition of consideration is but I can't. I looked at essays today and that lead me to wanting to cry. Gave myself the pep talks and tried to work through but now...just...fuck.

My mom walked in the kitchen just now trying to make things better and only managed to make them worse. "What have you been doing this whole time when you say you've been studying then?" Does TRYING to study make for a REASONABLE answer? Does being mad at myself for getting caught in the situation where I stay in the house too much with too many distractions and people who care too little for what I'm doing work as a response? Does it work if I tell her that being filled with self loathing and self doubt is what I do?

There is no way I pass this. No fucking way. I've tried to remain calm and carry on as it were but there just isn't. Even if I calm myself down and try and remain positive, I don't have the requisite ability to bullshit the law the way I'd like to enough to pass this fucking test. And I'm done trying to remain positive about it. "No, really, it's alllll gonna be fine." I'm done being a cheerleader for myself. Because it hasn't been enough. I KNOW deep down it hasn't been enough. No matter how much natural wit I possess (which, by the by, is completely different than being smart as far as I'm concerned. I don't think I'm a dumbass but I certainly don't characterize myself as someone who is smart, either), I don't have the requisite brains necessary to figure out how to defeat the MFing bar exam. Which is frustrating in and of itself because I can't even tell you how many really bad, stupid lawyers pass it.

I was doing crim pro earlier, outlining it, working on understanding wtf probable cause for a warrant is (submit what you know to the fiction of a neutral and detached magistrate for approval that you believe that the items you want can be seized from the place you think they are...I think) and I just was so angry about it all I had to stop. Which is when my mother decided to talk to me. After getting mad at me earlier for going to my dad's to study. Dad's house: quiet. He sits there for hours and doesn't say a word to me. This house? A fucking nightmare of people talking to the dog or banging kitchen pots or just in general EXISTING. Guess who made the same mistake she did last time in staying in that wrong house? Anyway, she says something about, "I said I'd get you a tutor." YOU DID? WHEN?! WHEN WAS THAT?! She never said that. Never ever ever said that. The last discussion I had about the bar exam and tutoring was when the bar dean at our school suggested a private tutor and I emailed Lindsey and said, "I a) have no more money and b) am not spending it on my brain if I do have it." Mom continues, "Do you want one now?" Yeah. The exam is in 5 days. A tutor at this juncture does me exactly zero good. This is just....hopeless.

And yes, I realize I elicit little in the way of sympathy. I have a goddamn graduate degree. I am not dying of cancer. I am not destitute or in any other way bad off. I realize my limbs function and my mind works and I am lucky in a lot of ways. I get that. I get that I need to STFU and figure out a way to soldier on. But right now? It's raining out and I need a motherfucking hug. And more than that I need someone to run rule formation with me.

I really really really hate this.

And I promise you that in a little over a week you will hear the last of the California bar exam.

No comments:

Post a Comment